Lehman’prophet’ hit by £3.6m fine

David Einhorn, the high-profile American hedge fund manager who foresaw problems at Lehman Brothers before the Wall Street bank collapsed, was hit with a £3.6 million fine from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) yesterday for trading on inside information.

The FSA fined Einhorn and his Greenlight Capital firm a total of £7.2m for market abuse. The watchdog said that Einhorn was told in June 2009 that pubs operator Punch Taverns was about to launch a rights issue.

Einhorn then gave instructions to sell Greenlight’s holding in Punch.