Credit Suisse trader fined after game of "charades" The head of credit trading at Credit Suisse has been fined £210,000 for disclosing confidential information about a forthcoming €2.5bn bond issue after inviting a UK fund manager to "play charades" and guess the identity of the issuer. Nicholas Kyprios encouraged a fund manager who had been invited by Credit Suisse to a roadshow in November 2009 for an unnamed company to guess the issuer, using phrases like "you're getting warmer," the Financial Services Authority said. It is the second time in six weeks that a UK broker has been fined for disclosing confidential details about a pending deal to an investor who had specifically asked not to be "wall-crossed" - market slang for being given inside information about a coming transaction. In January, Andrew Osborne, formerly of Bank of America Merrill Lynch, was fined £350,000 for tipping off US hedge fund investor David Einhorn to a 2009 rights issue by Punch Taverns, a pub chain. Mr Kyprios's fine was smaller because the fund manager did not trade on the information about Unitymedia, a German cable television group. He was also granted a 30 per cent discount for settling at an early stage. According to the FSA, Mr Kyprios told the fund manager, "you're going to be my charades partner" and ultimately signalled that Unitymedia was the correct answer by saying that "the line is breaking up" when it was not. "I can't get the unity in my hearing," the fund manager replied, to laughter from Mr Kyprios. Mr Kyprios, who initially told the regulator he viewed the conversation as "banter," declined to comment. Tracey McDermott, acting FSA enforcement director, said Mr Kyprios's conduct was "well below the standards we expect of senior market professionals." "While the FSA accepts that he did not set out to disclose the information, Kyprios" conduct in trying to push to the limit what he could say resulted in him crossing the line." The FSA is working on several other wall-crossing cases as part of stepped up efforts in both the UK and the US to crack down on market abuse by financial professionals, people familiar with the investigations said. Suspicious trading ahead of deals remains a serious problem in both countries. "Approved persons who have been wall-crossed need to recognise the value of the information they have been given and be vigilant in ensuring they do not inadvertently or recklessly disclose such information," Ms McDermott said. Sarah Clarke, a barrister who specialises in market abuse cases, said the case highlighted "the FSA's determination to make clear the high standards it expects of city professionals and the serious financial and professional consequences for those who fail to deal with [confidential] information properly." Credit Suisse said: "We deeply regret that one of our employees was sanctioned by the UK FSA for breaches related to our information policies. Credit Suisse fully supports the FSA's actions to ensure information is properly controlled and have reinforced the FSA's decision by imposing its own financial penalty on the individual. The bank declined to comment further. Mr Kyprios still works in the same position but he had his 2011 bonus docked by half in the wake of the FSA investigation, according to people familiar with the matter.