Former Morgan Stanley managing director Du Jun was found guilty of insider trading by a Hong Kong court on Thursday, in the city's highest-profile insider trading case.

Du was charged with acquiring shares worth HK$86 million in CITIC Resources <1205.HK> between February and April 2007 while he had material and price-sensitive information not known to the market. He was also charged with advising his wife to deal in CITIC Resources shares in that period.

The verdict comes 14 months after Du was arrested at the Hong Kong airport. He now faces up to seven years in prison when sentenced.

Du's conviction is the latest in a line of victories for the city's Securities and Futures Commission (SFC), its top corporate cop, which has for long been accused of being too soft on Hong Kong's clubby financial circles.

The SFC has secured a total of 10 convictions for insider trading since March this year. These include those of a former BNP Paribas Peregrine Capital investment banker and a former director of investment banking at CLSA Equity Capital Markets.

(Reporting by Parvathy Ullatil and Fion Li; Editing by Alison Leung and Valerie Lee)

Investment Insider trading BNP Paribas