Santander, the Spanish bank, yesterday said it had suspended a derivatives analyst charged by the US Securities and Exchange Commission with insider trading related to the $39bn BHP Billiton bid for PotashCorp.

Juan José Fernández García, the analyst, was charged together with Luis Martín Caro Sánchez after the SEC accused them of making nearly $1.1m in illegal profits by buying “out of the money” call options in PotashCorp, the fertiliser producer, and then selling them after the bid by BHP Billiton, the mining company, was announced on August 17.

“The bank has acted at all times following the appropriate procedures,” Santander said, adding that it would co-operate with investigators and was awaiting results of its own probe as well as the SEC’s. “Provisionally, while the investigation is completed, the employee concerned has been suspended from his job.”