Mathew Martoma is the former SAC Capital Advisors LP portfolio manager. His case is set to go to trial next month and Mathew Martoma has asked a judge to make the government turn over evidence that Martoma says can help him beat the insider trading charges.
“Insider trading” is a term that most investors have heard and usually associate with illegal conduct. But the term actually includes both legal and illegal conduct. The legal version is when corporate insiders such as officers, directors, and employees—buy and sell stock in their own companies. Illegal insider trading refers generally to buying or selling a security, in breach of a fiduciary duty or other relationship of trust and confidence, while in possession of material, nonpublic information about the security. Insider trading violations may also include “tipping” such information, securities trading by the person “tipped,” and securities trading by those who misappropriate such information.
Mathew Martoma, 39, stated in his request in a Manhattan federal court that, prosecutors have failed to provide him with communications between the government and lawyers for the two scientists who supposedly gave him non-public information about drug trials and who also will be key government witnesses, as reported by Bloomberg News.
Michael Steinberg, another former SAC manager, was found guilty by a federal jury. Steinberg was found guilty of using illegal tips to trade stocks of technology companies. The Stamford, Connecticut-based hedge fund continues to be under investigation according to Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, and the firm’s plea agreement does not provide any individual immunity from prosecution.
Mathew Martoma says that the two scientists, Sidney Gilman and Joel Ross, originally told the government they were not involved in passing insider information to him and Mathew Martoma alleges that those assertions contradict the charges filed against him. Steven Cohen, 57, who is SAC’s founder, has not been charged with a crime.
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