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First insider

trading

conviction

discovered

FRANKFURT: Two years after insider trading became a criminal offense in Germany, state prosecutors said on Friday they had achieved their first conviction.

Harald Kronseder, a member of the founding family of machinery maker Krones AG, was fined 600,000 marks (dlrs 406,200) fine after being confronted with the evidence and waving his right to a hearing, said the prosecutors.

They told a news conference that another insider trading investigation was underway, but gave no details. The practice became illegal under a law passed in August 1993.

Kronseder, 39, was administrator of the family's shareholdings. He sold preferred shares worth about 1.1 million marks (dlrs 677,000), acting on insider information about poor financial performance at company operations in South America, Central America and Eastern Europe, prosecutors said.

The press department at Krones AG's headquarters in Neutraubling was unstaffed and no one else would give a comment.

The Frankfurt prosecutor's office said others in the company had been investigated and cleared.

The probe began early this year, based on information from Germany's new trading watchdog agency. It was created by the August 1993 legislation and began operating Jan. 1, 1995.-AP