FRANKFURT (Reuters) -A former employee of investment bank Lazard was sentenced on Friday to an 18-month suspended jail term by a German court after being found guilty of insider trading, a court spokesperson said. The ruling by the Frankfurt regional court came after the ex-employee was charged in 2021 for passing on tips about upcoming takeovers of listed firms to the former head of an insurance company for almost two years. Between April 2018 and early 2020 the former insurance employee used the information to buy shares and derivatives in the affected firms before the deals became public an…