A Top London Banker at JPMorgan Chase Resigns

LONDON — One of the top bankers at JPMorgan Chase in London resigned on Tuesday.

Ian Hannam, JPMorgan’s global chairman of equity capital markets, left the bank after British financial regulators fined him for disclosing inside information.

Mr. Hannam said he would appeal the decision, which relates to two e-mails sent in 2008 to a prospective client. The e-mails contained information on Heritage Oil, a British oil and natural gas exploration company, for which Mr. Hannam was lead adviser, according to a statement from the Financial Services Authority of Britain.

The regulator fined Mr. Hannam £450,000, or $721,000, for the offenses.

The ruling on Mr. Hannam’s appeal may take more than a year. He is expected to stay at JPMorgan until he completes his client commitments, and no successor has been appointed.

‘‘Appealing the case while still at the firm would be an unfair distraction to my clients and colleagues,’’ Mr. Hannam said in a statement. ‘‘I strongly believe, and have been advised by my legal counsel, that the F.S.A.’s conclusions are wrong and I look forward to challenging them in an independent tribunal.’’

Mr. Hannam, a former soldier, is known for his expertise in the mining industry, and is part of a team currently advising Xstrata, the mining company that received a takeover bid from Glencore International.

He has worked on many of the largest natural resources deals in the last decade, including the initial public offerings of Vedanta Resources, the metals and mining company, and Xstrata.

Mr. Hannam worked for Salomon Brothers in the capital markets business before joining the British bank Robert Fleming in 1992, which was acquired by Chase Manhattan in 2000. He also helped to create the joint venture between JPMorgan and Cazenove. JPMorgan eventually acquired Cazenove in 2010.

While the Financial Services Authority said Mr. Hannam did not set out to commit market abuse, the regulator said his failures were serious because of his experience and senior position at JPMorgan.

Authorities added that the fine reflected the serious nature of the market abuse.

‘‘Inside information is extremely valuable and must be handled with care to ensure that it is properly controlled and that appropriate safeguards are observed,’’ Tracey McDermott, acting director of enforcement and financial crime for the authority, said in a statement. ‘‘This applies to all market participants but is particularly important for senior practitioners who will regularly interact with a wide circle of contacts.’’

Mr. Hannam is not the first prominent figure to come under the authority’s scrutiny this year. British regulators have issued a number of fines in recent months, despite plans to split up the Financial Services Authority in 2013. The majority of its powers will be given to the Bank of England, the country’s central bank.

Earlier this year, the money manager David Einhorn and his hedge fund, Greenlight Capital, were fined about $11 million for using confidential information to trade in the stock of a British pub chain.

The authority also fined Andrew Osborne, a former Merrill Lynch corporate broker, £350,000 for leaking the confidential information to Greenlight Capital in what the agency called ‘‘a serious case of market abuse.”

Last month, British regulators fined the private bank Coutts £8.75 million over failing to follow standards intended to fight money laundering. The F.S.A. said Coutts, which is part of the nationalized Royal Bank of Scotland and provides banking services to Queen Elizabeth II, had not applied rigorous controls when dealing with so-called high-risk customers.

Hector Sants, chief executive of the Financial Services Authority, also said last month that he would step down at the end of June, as part of a major overhaul of the country’s system for policing financial markets.