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The Teflon Trader slips away again. For those who don’t know, Steve Cohen of SAC Capital, number 36 on Forbes’ Richest Americans list, has been under investigation for a good deal of his career. The suspicion is always the same, insider trading.
And now Cohen’s firm is part of a settlement to pay $600 million in fines imposed by the SEC for insider trading crimes.
The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced that Stamford, Conn.-based hedge fund advisory firm CR Intrinsic Investors has agreed to pay more than $600 million to settle SEC charges that it participated in an insider trading scheme involving a clinical trial for an Alzheimer’s drug being jointly developed by two pharmaceutical companies…
The settlement filed today in federal court in Manhattan is the largest ever in an insider trading case, requiring CR Intrinsic — an affiliate of S.A.C. Capital Advisors — to pay $274,972,541 in disgorgement, $51,802,381.22 in prejudgment interest, and a $274,972,541 penalty.
As is customary SAC Capital neither admitted or denied that it had committed the crime it paid out the fine for – giving the firm a nice tax break. A ridiculous Wall Street tradition which facilitated the firm issuing a benign statement as if they forget to properly fill out their paperwork.
“We are happy to put the Elan and Dell matters with the SEC behind us,” SAC said in a statement Friday. “This settlement is a substantial step toward resolving all outstanding regulatory matters and allows the firm to move forward with confidence. We are committed to continuing to maintain a first-rate compliance effort woven into the fabric of the firm.”
Steve Cohen himself was directly implicated in one of the insider trading scams via email which would seem to be pretty strong evidence. Apparently not. It would not be the first time he escaped charges though this level of publicity may force the Justice Department to take more action, there is no Holder/Breuer “Too Big To Fail” justification here for not prosecuting. But until then Cohen and the SAC Capital crew will continue on remaining free and rich, at least for now.
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This guy keeps getting away with insider trading??!! wait . . . can I give him my money to invest?
If you have a pension you may already have!
So wait, they managed to send Martha Stewart to jail for two years for lying to prosecutors. You want to tell me this guy has never done that?!?! IOW, if they can’t find another reason to jail his ass they aren’t looking. But then Stewart actually did something and wasn’t just a trader who did nothing but gamble other people’s assets to enrich themselves. You know so valuable to society they are too big to jail.
Steal a little and they throw you in jail. Steal a lot and they make you king
Ever since I was a kid – a long, long time ago – organized crime (which Hoover denied existed) has been using an ‘everybody does it’ defense as an excuse for their crimes. It appears they were right.
I have a theory regarding insider trading.
It goes something like this: Make a list of the top 25 investors (by earnings %) for the year. Then you’ll have a list those involved in insider trading.
People are so freakin’ naive… ALL big trades are insider trades.
What happened to being barred from the securities industry? For a time, or for life.
The entire trading thing is a scam. These people need to get a real job…
I know about Cohen. Chump change! Barely a tap on the wrist. He’ll probably be vetching about taxes in some public forum shortly.
Mstewart pissed someone off. She did commit a crime however. But what Stewart did was piffling in comparison to these shits. And yes, at the end of the day, Stewart does actually create jobs. Some jobs of course are off shore but some here.
What has Cohen done ? Other than be a crook?
Stevie is a career scam artist. When I worked at the S*C last decade, we had him investing in dozens of pump&dump and PIPE&dump stocks, with him personally making the decision to get in bed with a pair of notorious penny-stock recidivists. More recently, he has been sued repeatedly for overvaluing junk stock holdings and preventing redemptions illegally. The USA SDNY won’t touch him, but the NYS AG and the DANY are hot to bring him down. If you have money with him, get it out now (if he will let you).