John Cross, managing director of Wordplex Plc from May 1986 to April 1987, faces a charge of insider dealing on the grounds that he allegedly dealt in the shares of the company on April 30 last year, at a time when he was in possession of unpublished price sensitive information as a result of his connection with the company: Cross resigned when the Octagon group engineered a management buy-in at the company, but the Octagon recapitalisation plans were thwarted when first Apricot Computers Plc and then Norsk Data A/S launched bids for the word processor manufacturer; the Norsk Data bid was ultimately successful.
