PR Adviser Pleads Guilty To Insider Trading Charges

Margot Mackay, a former PR consultant to the gambling company Aristocrat, has pleaded guilty to three charges of insider trading. Mackay, who headed her own company Margot McKay and Associates, used family members to buy almost $150,000 in shares ahead of announcements to the stock exchange that she wrote herself. Kate McClymont reports that McKay "was hired by Aristocrat in 2003 to clean up its corporate image after a series of scandals involving some of its senior executives." Mackay was prosecuted after Aristocrat reported her share-trading to the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.