Drunk Oil Broker Fined and Banned

THIS one's true. Hot off the Reuters Press. Some of 'em you can't make up...

1:16pm BST LONDON (Reuters) - The financial regulator has fined and banned a former PVM Oil Futures Ltd. broker for manipulating the price of oil last year by the unauthorised purchase of more than 7 million barrels while drunk.

The Financial Services Authority (FSA) said in a statement it had fined Steven Noel Perkins 72,000 pounds and banned him from working in the financial services industry for at least five years for buying huge volumes of Brent crude oil without client authorisation.

"As a direct result of Perkins' trading, the price of Brent increased significantly," the FSA said in a statement.

"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."

The FSA said that in the early hours of Tuesday June 30 2009, Perkins traded in "extremely high volume" on the ICE August Brent crude oil future contract, accumulating a position equivalent to over 7 million barrels of oil.

Perkins had been drinking extremely heavily over the weekend prior to June 29 and had continued drinking through Monday before executing the trades, the FSA said. Since the incident Perkins has joined a rehabilitation programme for alcoholics and has stopped drinking.