The British tycoon Joseph Lewis, owner of Lago Escondido in Argentina, pleaded “guilty” before a United States court for having used insider information about companies to benefit collaborators, friends and partners.
This was confirmed by the official website of the Federal Prosecutor’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which stated that the billionaire businessman could even go to prison.
Federal prosecutor Damian Williams indicated, according to the website, that “Lewis abused inside information he gained through his access to corporate boardrooms to alert his friends, employees and romantic interests.”
“Now, he will pay the price with a federal conviction, the prospect of prison time and the largest financial penalty for insider trading in a decade,” he added.
In addition, one of his companies, Broad Bay Ltd., “which did not detect or report this misconduct, has also been held accountable and will plead guilty and pay more than $50 million in financial penalties,” the prosecutor added.
That amount, as specified, is made up of “a fine of $15,586,021 and $34,413,979 in confiscation.”
Lewis “pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Jessica GL Clarke,” the prosecutor’s office said.
Additionally, Lewis accepted responsibility for one of his companies in “a scheme to conceal ownership and control of stock in a pharmaceutical company through a pattern of false filings and misleading statements.”
“As part of Broad Bay LTD.’s guilty plea, Lewis and that company have agreed that they will relinquish their control over board seats and participation in meetings of any publicly traded corporation in the United States. will cease to own certain investments for a five-year trial period and will cooperate with the investigation,” the text added.
Lewis was arrested in July of last year in the United States and remains free after paying bail of $300 million, the highest in New York judicial history.
Source: Ambito
