Federal authorities, capping a three-year investigation, are preparing insider-trading charges that could ensnare consultants, investment bankers, hedge-fund and mutual-fund traders and analysts across the nation, according to people familiar with the matter.
The criminal and civil probes, which authorities say could eclipse the impact on the financial industry of any previous such investigation, are examining whether multiple insider-trading rings reaped illegal profits totaling tens of millions of dollars, the people say. Some charges could be brought before year-end, they say.
The investigations, if they bear fruit, have the potential to expose a culture of pervasive insider trading in U.S. financial markets, including new ways non-public information is passed to traders through experts tied to specific industries or companies, federal authorities say.
One focus of the criminal investigation is examining whether nonpublic information was passed along by independent analysts and consultants who work for companies that provide "expert network" services to hedge funds and mutual funds. These companies set up meetings and calls with current and former managers from hundreds of companies for traders seeking an investing edge.
Among the expert networks whose consultants are being examined, the people say, is Primary Global Research LLC, a Mountain View, Calif., firm that connects experts with investors seeking information in the technology, health-care and other industries. "I have no comment on that," said Phani Kumar Saripella, Primary Global's chief operating officer. Primary's chief executive and chief operating officers previously worked at Intel Corp., according to its website.
In another aspect of the probes, prosecutors and regulators are examining whether Goldman Sachs Group Inc. bankers leaked information about transactions, including health-care mergers, in ways that benefited certain investors, the people say. Goldman declined to comment.
Any time I see the words "Goldman Sachs," "investigation," and "criminal charges" in the same sentence, I smile.
The only thing that would make me happier is to see the words "Geoffrey" and "Canada" added to that sentence.
Mr. Canada, of course, has made a career of taking money from these crooks to use for his "charity" work.
If you take money from crooks knowing they're crooks, does that make you a crook too?
Canada does more than take their money: he socializes, identifies with and makes bank like they do. He's the poster child of the so-called social entrepreneur who has enriched himself by building his empire with money from the public and financial types, while serving to privatize social services and schools in Harlem. At the moment, he's planning a hostile takeover of public housing there to expand his empire.
ReplyDeleteBack in the day they were called poverty pimps.
Last year when financial parasite Raj Rajaratnam of the Galleon Hedge Fund was arrested and charged with insider trading, Canada offered to bail him out. He's probably gotten more than a few insider tips himself.
I was waiting to see what happened with the Rajaratnam case a bit before doing something on it. Quite a few lower people in that case have pled guilty and if the feds get to use the wiretaps in the trial, it sounds like Goeffrey's pal is in trouble. But we'll see - the feds have fucked these kinds of things up before.
ReplyDelete