Well-oiled: City firm lost £6m after drunk broker bought 7MILLION barrels of crude



The trading floor at PVM: Steve Perkins lost the company £6million

A rogue trader who blew £345million on seven million barrels of oil while drunkenly using his home computer has been fined £72,000.

Steve Perkins sat up all night drinking at his redbrick semi, and clicked 'buy' on the trade while in an 'alcohol-induced blackout'.

The 34-year-old broker from Essex sent global oil prices rocketing and caused chaos in the markets after a boozy golf weekend.

When he awoke with a hangover, he tried to pretend nothing had happened, sending his boss a text message asking for the day off because a relative was 'unwell'.

Yesterday he was banned from the City and ordered to pay the £72,000 fine in monthly instalments over three years by the Financial ServicesAuthority watchdog.



Until recently, Mr Perkins lived in a £340,000 two-bedroom house in Brentwood. But last night a woman there refused to comment as she wheeled a pushchair, saying: 'He has gone away.'

A neighbour claimed Mr Perkins had gone to work in Switzerland.







The astonishing episode happened a year ago, when City bankers were at the peak of their unpopularity for reckless and greedy behaviour that was blamed for the economic crisis.

Mr Perkins, who worked for City brokers PVM Oil, had gone on a golfing weekend organised by the firm.

He then took the Monday off work and continued to binge drink from midday onwards. By the evening, Mr Perkins had made his first batch of unauthorised trades.

But it was in the early hours of the next day - June 30 last year - that the serious damage was done.

Echoes of 1995: Steve Perkins' drunken trades are reminiscent of Nick Leeson's spectacular unauthorised actions that killed off Barings Bank

Mr Perkins has no real recollection, but in his alcoholic haze he went on a spending spree on his computer, which was remotely logged in to his company's markets trading system in the City.

In his stupor, he casually notched up thousands of trades worth a total of $520million (£345million).

He drunkenly bought a net 7.13million barrels of oil during the typically quiet overnight period, and at times was actually responsible for 69 per cent of the overall volume of Brent crude being traded globally.

His actions sent prices surging by more than $1.50 to $73.50 (£48.75) for a barrel of Brent crude oil - the highest it had been for eight months.

The deals ended up costing his company £6million and potentially cost companies worldwide more than £100million.

Yesterday the FSA banned him from working in the City for a minimum of five years and said he was 'not a fit and proper person' to work in the industry due to his alcoholism.

The FSA said: 'As a direct result of Perkins' trading, the price of Brent increased significantly.

'Perkins' trading manipulated the market in Brent by giving a false and misleading impression as to the supply, demand and price of Brent - and caused the price of Brent to increase to an abnormal and artificial level.

It6 said the broker had made matters worse the following day by lying to his bosses.

He finally admitted what he had done later, when his trading access was suspended and the company sold off the rest of the oil, raking back all but £6million.

The FSA said: 'Perkins' trading seems to have been a consequence of extremely heavy drinking resulting from alcoholism, which he now acknowledges.'

It added Mr Perkins - who was sacked - has since joined an alcoholics' rehabilitation programme.

The FSA made no criticism of PVM in its report but said Mr Perkins 'poses an extreme risk to the market when drunk'.

The City regulator said the £72,000 fine would have been £150,000 but for the 'financial hardship' this would cause him.

A spokesman for his solicitor declined to comment, while a PVM spokesman said only: 'We note this morning's statement ... and that this matter is now fully closed.'

The unauthorised deal echoes that of Singapore-based trader Nick Leeson, who in 1995 brought down the British Barings Bank after running up losses of £862million trading in derivatives.