NY Insider trading: Bharara is after Steven Cohen, not Mathew Martoma
SUttara Choudhury, 28 November 2012
Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, who has won guilty convictions against high-profile Galleon Group billionaire Raj Rajaratnam and former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, is not resting on his laurels.
Since the crackdown on insider trading began five years ago on Wall Street, there have been more than 70 arrests. Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara, who has won guilty convictions against high-profile Galleon Group billionaire Raj Rajaratnam and former Goldman Sachs director Rajat Gupta, is not resting on his laurels.
Bharara is now displaying fresh firepower by going after Steven Cohen, the billionaire art collector and founder of hedge fund giant SAC Capital. Bharara said Mathew Martoma, 38, a former portfolio manager for Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors, used an illegal tip on a clinical trial of an Alzheimer’s drug to net $276 million for Cohen’s fund.
Bharara said the profit of around a quarter of a billion dollars was the most any hedge fund ever netted from a single illegal tip.
Indian American Martoma, is the only one charged so far with helping SAC Capital make $276 million in illegal profits on shares of Elan Pharmaceuticals and Wyeth in July 2008, after getting inside tips related to clinical trial results of an Alzheimer’s drug the two companies were developing. Martoma traded on the clinical trial data before it was made public which is illegal.
