Ex-Macquarie banker, who made Rs 15 crore profit, pleads guilty to contempt

'Work pressure lead to illegal trade'

Ex-Macquarie banker, who made Rs 15 crore profit, pleads guilty to contemptu00a0u00a0

Sobbing in a witness box, a former Macquarie banker has told of the massive pressure he felt to perform in his role, how he took millions of dollars for himself while running a fund and the burden he felt being secretly HIV+.

Oswyn De Silva (36), broke down as he gave evidence in the NSW Supreme Court yesterday and admitted, under legal privilege, that he had devised a plan to earn millions of dollars beyond his $1,75,000 (Rs 73 lakh) salary and bonuses by front-running.

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission said De Silva made $3.6 (Rs 15 crore) million in profit from 29 trades in 2006 and 2007. "I said to myself, if I am going to make everybody rich then I am going to devise a plan where I'm not left out,"u00a0 De Silva told the court.

He is charged with contempt of court and was giving evidence in relation to that.

De Silva said he spiralled into cocaine abuse after leaving Macquarie. He said he discovered he was HIV+ in November 2005 but did not tell his employer.

His relationship with Macquarie soured over a pay dispute around that time. He said he was then ordered to employ a hedge-fund style strategy of high-frequency trading and threatened with no payment if he did not grow his fund.

He said the stress of his job included ''being told to perform, how to cut my hair, told how to dress, being told I looked too young for the role''.

He said he worked 12 hours a day and flew around the world, falling ill often and claiming overseas doctors' bills as expenses. Finally he cracked under the stress and told his boss of his HIV status.

He described Macquarie as an organisation of people ''forcing people to perform, perform - pressure, pressure - and [they] were inhuman, until the moment they found out about my illness and then I realised they were made of humans as well''.

He said he quit Macquarie in London in May 2008, due to his illness, and received a confidential payout in September that year.

He was visiting Australia in February when ASIC served him with orders that he remain in the country for questioning. Justice George Palmer is due to sentence Mr De Silva tomorrow.

ASIC argued that Mr De Silva should go to jail but he has tendered a doctor's report saying his CD4 blood cells, ''the heart of the immune system'', have fallen to a dangerously low level, not far from the threshhold for AIDS, and jail would be bad for his health.

Macquarie declined to comment.

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