Neil Collins, a financial journalist, has resigned after it was discovered that he had written about companies in which he held shares and made trades shortly afterwards. A columnist at Reuters Breakingviews, the commentary and analysis service, Mr Collins volunteered his resignation after realising he had breached the company’s rules guiding journalists’ conduct. Mr Collins was the City editor of The Daily Telegraph for almost 20 years until 2005 and before that held the same role at The Sunday Times and the London Evening Standard.
Thomson Reuters said on Monday the columnist had committed “multiple breaches of Thomson Reuters’ code of conduct on share dealing”. Thomson Reuters has added a disclosure to all relevant archived Breakingviews columns, noting whether the columnist held shares in the relevant companies at the time of writing, and if they traded shortly before or after publication. Thomson Reuters identified 37 articles, published between February 2009 and July 2010, in which columnists wrote about companies in which they held shares, and 16 articles in which journalists wrote about companies before or after trading in their shares. Reuters’ code of conduct forbids journalists from writing about shares they own, unless they notify their interest to their manager. They are also restricted from dealing in shares about which they have written recently or intend to write in the near future. (Financial Times)
