A trader who falsely inflated the share price of a company listed on the Plus Stock Exchange by impersonated other people has been slapped with a restraining injunction by the High Court.

Samuel Kahn was fined £1,094,900 by the Financial Services Authority and hit with a final injunction for market abuse between 24 March and 30 April 2010 when he coordinated a scheme to deliberately inflate the share price of Global Brands Licensing (GBL).

Profits from this illegal trading activity were withdrawn from a third party’s bank account at Kahn’s instruction and delivered to him in cash, the FSA discovered.

The scheme also involved a significant proportion of GBL's shares being donated to charities.

These donations were co-ordinated by Kahn and aimed at illegitimately taking advantage of GBL's artificially inflated share price for tax relief purposes and for the purpose of facilitating boiler room activities.

This aspect of Mr Kahn's scheme was not fully implemented due to the suspension of GBL's shares by Plus on 30 April 2010.

Kahn has never worked at an authorised firm regulated by the FSA but he was the subject of an FSA investigation and enforcement action in 2007 for his involvement in overseas boiler-room activities.

In 2008 the FSA made Kahn bankrupt after he admitted liability for claims totalling up to £3.7 million made by the FSA on behalf of about 800 investors.

In light of Kahn's previous misconduct and his more recent actions in GBL, the FSA has obtained an injunction at the High Court restraining Kahn from committing market abuse in future.

This is the first occasion on which the FSA has exercised its powers under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 to obtain a final injunction against an individual to restrain market abuse.

Tracey McDermott, acting director of enforcement and financial crime at the FSA, said that Kahn undertook a month-long campaign of market abuse, manipulating 85 per cent of the buy trades and 91 per cent of the sell trades of GBL for his own financial benefit.

She added, ‘He impersonated other individuals to conceal his involvement and the scheme was only halted due to the suspension of GBL's shares on Plus.

‘The FSA views Kahn's conduct as particularly serious due to his prior misconduct and previous action taken against him by the FSA.’

The fine is the first calculated under the FSA's new penalties regime introduced on 6 March 2010. It consists of disgorgement of £210,563 and a financial penalty of £884,365, leading to a total fine of £1,094,900 after rounding down.

Kahn qualified for a Stage 1 (30 per cent) discount on the penalty amount under the FSA's settlement discount scheme. The fine of £1,094,900 reflects this discount. Without the discount, the financial penalty element of the fine would otherwise have been £1,263,379.