Fund managers at Schroders, Oddo Asset Management and Dexia Asset Management, along with star hedge fund manager Guillaume Rambourg at Gartmore, have been fined almost €1m ($1.3m) by the Italian regulator Consob for market abuse. Rambourg's fine is unrelated to his suspension from Gartmore yesterday.

The managers were fined for frontrunning a broker note on Italian bank Italease in 2006, according to documents on Consob's website, published last week. Frontrunning refers to the practice of taking a profitable position after receiving information before it is made public.