Rengan Rajaratnam cleared, U.S. insider trading streak snapped
Raj Rajaratnam
Matthew Taylor -- Mr. Taylor, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, owned a home in the Hamptons by the time he was 28.
“In short, Mr. Taylor, you were, in the words of Tom Wolfe, ‘a master of the universe,’ ” the judge, William H. Pauley III, said.
The C.F.T.C. accused Mr. Taylor, who traded equity derivatives products in New York, of hiding the $8.3 billion position he had taken in electronic futures contracts tied to the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Though his superiors had ordered him to reduce the risk on his trading book, he instead ratcheted up the position. To conceal the size of the position, he entered “multiple false entries” into a Goldman trading system, booking trades that he never actually made.
Goldman fired Mr. Taylor after learning about his cover-up and reported the unauthorized trades to authorities within days. The C.F.T.C. did not bring charges against Mr. Taylor until five years later, during which time he was able to get another job as a trader with Morgan Stanley.
Ex-Goldman Trader Sentenced to 9 Months in Prison
By RACHEL ABRAMS DECEMBER 6, 2013 6:33 PM
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/e...
Michael S. Steinberg, - December 18, 2013 – “Prosecutors lacked the incriminating wiretaps that underpinned past insider trading cases. The emails pointed to no smoking gun. And the government’s star witness, a felon who testified to avoid prison time, fumbled his way through five days of cross-examination.
And yet a federal jury in Manhattan on Wednesday still convicted Michael S. Steinberg, the highest-ranking employee at SAC Capital Advisors to stand trial for insider trading.”
Former SAC Trader Is Convicted of Insider Trading
By BEN PROTESS, MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN and ALEXANDRA STEVENSON DECEMBER 18, 2013 3:57 PM
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/e...
Matthew Taylor -- Mr. Taylor, who graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, owned a home in the Hamptons by the time he was 28.
“In short, Mr. Taylor, you were, in the words of Tom Wolfe, ‘a master of the universe,’ ” the judge, William H. Pauley III, said.
The C.F.T.C. accused Mr. Taylor, who traded equity derivatives products in New York, of hiding the $8.3 billion position he had taken in electronic futures contracts tied to the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index. Though his superiors had ordered him to reduce the risk on his trading book, he instead ratcheted up the position. To conceal the size of the position, he entered “multiple false entries” into a Goldman trading system, booking trades that he never actually made.
Goldman fired Mr. Taylor after learning about his cover-up and reported the unauthorized trades to authorities within days. The C.F.T.C. did not bring charges against Mr. Taylor until five years later, during which time he was able to get another job as a trader with Morgan Stanley.
Ex-Goldman Trader Sentenced to 9 Months in Prison
By RACHEL ABRAMS DECEMBER 6, 2013 6:33 PM
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/06/e...
Michael S. Steinberg, - December 18, 2013 – “Prosecutors lacked the incriminating wiretaps that underpinned past insider trading cases. The emails pointed to no smoking gun. And the government’s star witness, a felon who testified to avoid prison time, fumbled his way through five days of cross-examination.
And yet a federal jury in Manhattan on Wednesday still convicted Michael S. Steinberg, the highest-ranking employee at SAC Capital Advisors to stand trial for insider trading.”
Former SAC Trader Is Convicted of Insider Trading
By BEN PROTESS, MATTHEW GOLDSTEIN and ALEXANDRA STEVENSON DECEMBER 18, 2013 3:57 PM
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2013/12/18/e...
Matthew Martoma was found guilty of violating US securities laws with trades based on confidential testing data on prospective Alzheimer's medications developed by pharmaceutical firms Elan and Wyeth.
A pair of doctors testified in the case that they had passed the confidential data Martoma, showing disappointing test results for the drugs.
SAC subsequently sold virtually all of its $700 million investment exposure to the two companies, according to the government's indictment." -- https://en-maktoob.news.yahoo.com/former...
These people are being punished for acting on _knowledge_. The socialist theory - actually a radical democratic epistemology - is that no one is allowed to know anything not known to all. Moreover, the essence of financial investment must be only a crap shoot - which is their view of the market. Their legal regime enforces a RANDOM approach to investing, so that no "bet" is operationally superior to any other, like roulette.
A former executive of the Shaw Group has pled guilty to engaging in insider trading. The conviction is the result of an ongoing federal investigation into the use of pre-merger confidential information regarding the 2012 acquisition of Shaw by Chicago Bridge and Iron Company (CB&I).
SCOTT DAVID ZERINGUE, age 48, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, pled guilty before Chief Judge Brian A. Jackson to one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371. ZERINGUE also agreed to forfeit proceeds derived from the offense.
Chicago Bridge and Iron - CB&I - is also known as "Cousins, Brothers and In-laws." It would be hard to find a licensed professional engineer in any American state who does not have "insider" knowledge.
_Insider Trading Conviction_
In 1988, Soros was interested in purchasing shares in French companies. The Socialist party had lost its majority of seats in the Assembly, and the new government under Jacques Chirac had instituted an aggressive privatization program. Many people considered shares in the newly privatized companies undervalued. ....
In 1989, the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (the French stock exchange regulatory authority) conducted an investigation of whether Soros' transaction in Société Générale should be considered insider trading.
... Several years later, a Paris-based prosecutor reopened the case against Soros and two other French businessmen, disregarding the COB's findings. This resulted in Soros' 2005 conviction for insider trading by the Court of Appeals (he was the only one of the three to receive a conviction). The French Supreme Court confirmed the conviction on June 14, 2006, but reduced the penalty to €940,000.
Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soro...
"Raj Rajaratnam (Tamil: ராஜ் ராஜரத்தினம்; born June 15, 1957) is a Sri Lankan American former hedge fund manager and billionaire founder of the Galleon Group, a New York-based hedge fund management firm.[3][4] On October 16, 2009, he was arrested by the FBI on allegations of insider trading, which also caused the Galleon Group to close.[5] He stood trial in U.S. v Rajaratnam (09 Cr. 01184) in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, and on May 11, 2011 was found guilty on all 14 counts of conspiracy and securities fraud.[6][7] On October 13, 2011, Rajaratnam was sentenced to 11 years in prison[8] and fined a criminal and civil penalty of over $150 million combined.[9]
As of January 14, 2013 Rajaratnam is incarcerated at Federal Medical Center, Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts, an administrative facility housing male offenders requiring specialized or long-term medical or mental health care. Rajaratnam's release date is July 4, 2021." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raj_Rajarat...
"The government’s winning streak continued throughout 2013 and 2014 as the Department of Justice secured one victory after another, tallying more than 80 guilty verdicts and pleas as it added wire taps to its crime-fighting arsenal. The bountiful of trophies collected by Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office led the Department of Justice’s crusade, included Steven Cohen’s SAC Capital, which forked over $1.8 billion in penalties and shuttered its doors to outside clients. Compared to the difficulty it had in prosecuting Wall Street for the 2008 financial crisis, these victories indicated that the government could still successfully pursue white collar criminals." -- FORBES here: http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelbobel...