An alleged insider trading duo were lured by "irresistible" profits but may have come unstuck by being "lazy" or "slack", the NSW Supreme Court has heard.
In his closing address to the jury in the criminal trial of Oliver Curtis, husband of Sydney public relations queen Roxy Jacenko, Crown prosecutor David Staehli, SC, said Mr Curtis and his alleged co-conspirator John Hartman were gamblers and "risk-takers".
The former best friends and investment bankers allegedly struck an illegal deal to use confidential information to cash in on the sharemarket, netting $1.43 million between mid-2007 and 2008.
The St Ignatius' College, Riverview, old boys were then aged in their early 20s.
On Friday, Mr Staehli described Mr Hartman, the prosecution's star witness, as "a man who ... has a kind of flexible morality".
He said the same description would apply to Mr Curtis, if the jury of 12 men and women found him guilty of insider trading.
"Plainly, these two men thought they were on a good thing," Mr Staehli alleged, likening their arrangement to knowing when a horse was going to win a race.
Mr Hartman has given evidence he passed tips to Mr Curtis based on confidential information he gleaned during his job an equities dealer at boutique investment firm Orion Asset Management.
He said Mr Curtis would use the information to bet on shifts in share prices, and the pair would split the profits 50-50.
There is no dispute the men entered into the trades of so-called contracts for difference. But Mr Curtis' defence team denies any illegal deal and says no confidential information changed hands.
Mr Staehli suggested that in the circumstances the men might have become "a bit lazy, a bit slack perhaps".
"The people who get caught tend to be those who make mistakes," he said.
"If you commit the perfect crime you don't get caught."
One trade made the duo $116,000 in one hit, he said, and "that kind of reward for a few phone calls must have been irresistible".
Mr Hartman has already served 15 months behind bars after pleading guilty to a string of insider trading offences, most of which related to his own trading. He was released in March 2012 on a good behaviour bond.
The court has heard Mr Hartman spoke to the investigating body, the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, after being caught out by his broker in 2009.
"He told them significant things which were against his interest and also against the interest of Mr Curtis," Mr Staehli said.
Defence barrister Murugan Thangaraj, SC, began his closing remarks to the jury on Friday afternoon. He said there were some "Greek tragedy ... aspects to the case".
Mr Hartman was "desperate and wanted a deal with ASIC" when he "put Mr Curtis in" the frame, Mr Thangaraj said. Mr Hartman's sentence was discounted by the Court of Criminal Appeal on the condition he give evidence in his former friend's trial.
Mr Thangaraj said Mr Hartman's morality was "perfectly flexible" and "flexed in a way that suited him for whatever he was doing".
But Mr Staehli said there was "not a shred of evidence" there was ever any discussion between ASIC and Mr Hartman or his lawyers about admissions he would make or a deal that the regulator would "go soft" on him in return for his cooperation.
Mr Thangaraj will conclude his remarks to the jury on Monday. Justice Lucy McCallum will then deliver a summing up before the jury retires to consider its verdict.
