Federal prosecutors charged Joseph C. Lewis, the British billionaire who owns the Tottenham Hotspur English soccer membership, with insider buying and selling, accusing him of illegally funneling nonpublic data to associates to commerce on.
In a 29-page indictment, prosecutors in Manhattan on Tuesday accused the 86-year-old financier of doling out tricks to associates and associates, together with his pilots, private assistants and romantic companions from 2019 to 2021.
“He used inside information as a way to compensate employees and shower gifts on friends and lovers,” Damian Williams, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, stated in a press release. “It’s cheating and against the law.”
According to the indictment, Mr. Lewis took details about a number of publicly traded corporations, gleaned from his varied funding automobiles, and urged staff to commerce on them.
In one case, he realized about promising scientific trial information at Mirati Therapeutics, a pharmaceutical firm, by way of a hedge fund he managed. He then urged a girlfriend, a private assistant and two pilots to purchase Mirati shares earlier than the news was revealed — and, within the case of the pilots, lent every $500,000 to allow them to amass extra shares.
In a textual content to a pal, in keeping with the indictment, one of many pilots wrote that he believed that “the Boss has inside info,” as a result of “otherwise why would he make us invest.”
Prosecutors additionally accused Mr. Lewis of conspiring to disguise the dimensions of his stake in Mirati by way of a collection of shell corporations, together with one purportedly created for the advantage of his granddaughter; and of creating false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission. Those fraudulent filings, in keeping with the indictment, allowed him to train inventory warrants that have been in any other case unavailable.
A lawyer for Mr. Lewis, David Zornow, stated that prosecutors had “made an egregious error in judgment in charging Mr. Lewis, an 86-year-old man of impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishment.” Mr. Zornow added that his shopper had gone to the United States voluntarily to answer the fees and deliberate to combat them in court docket.
From his residence bases within the Bahamas, Florida and Argentina, Mr. Lewis owns the Tavistock Group, an unlimited internet of companies throughout 13 international locations, together with the Mitchells & Butlers chain of pubs, nation golf equipment and accommodations.
Among his crown jewels is a majority stake in Tottenham, the English Premier League soccer membership in north London that Mr. Lewis took management of in 2007. A household belief related to Mr. Lewis owns a majority stake in ENIC, the company entity that owns a majority of Tottenham’s shares.
On Wednesday, Tottenham stated, “This a legal matter unconnected with the club and as such we have no comment.”
Mr. Lewis amassed a fortune from a long time of foreign money buying and selling, speculating on actions of the British pound — teaming up with George Soros in 1992 to mint big earnings — and the Mexican peso. Bloomberg has estimated his internet value at greater than $6.5 billion.
Mr. Lewis grew up above a pub in London’s East End and helped rework his father’s catering firm into a sequence of themed eating places. By age 15 he had dropped out of college to focus full-time on business, and after promoting the restaurant business moved to the Bahamas as a approach to keep away from taxes.
For a lot of his profession he has stayed beneath the radar, seemingly content material to wager on actual property and play golf. But he has often struck high-profile offers. In the Nineties, he purchased an almost 30 p.c stake in Christie’s, the public sale home, earlier than promoting that funding to François Pinault, a French luxurious mogul.
And in 2007, Mr. Lewis emerged as an investor in Bear Stearns, spending greater than $1 billion to build up an almost 10 p.c stake within the funding home over a matter of months. The timing of his wager proved horrible, nevertheless. In 2008, because the monetary disaster unfolded, Bear Stearns was pressured to promote itself to JPMorgan Chase for $10 a share. (He had paid as a lot as $110 a share.)
Mr. Lewis can also be a high-powered artwork collector, who has owned items by Picasso, Matisse, David Hockney and extra. Among his most distinguished holdings are the unique sculpture and a number of other copies of “Charging Bull,” the enduring bronze ode to capitalism close to Wall Street.
Source: www.nytimes.com