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Joe Lewis, the billionaire real estate investor and owner of Tottenham Hotspur football club, has been charged over multiple alleged instances of insider trading, US prosecutors said on Tuesday.
The 86-year-old, who is one of Britain’s richest men, is accused of tipping off employees, associates, friends and romantic interests with non-public information about companies in which he had invested, and lending some of them hundreds of thousands of dollars to trade on the knowledge. He has been charged with 19 counts, including securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud and make false statements.
According to the indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court on Tuesday, Lewis and his associates were collectively able to make millions of dollars using the stolen information, which included favourable results from clinical trials.
Lewis, whose investments are largely held through a portfolio company, Tavistock Group, is alleged to have shared information about publicly traded life science groups Solid Biosciences and Mirati Therapeutics, as well as beef producer Australian Agricultural Company (AAC) and a special purpose acquisition company, BCTG.
A lawyer for Lewis, David Zornow of Skadden Arps, said in a statement: “The government has made an egregious error in judgment in charging Mr Lewis, an 86-year-old man of impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishment. Mr Lewis has come to the US voluntarily to answer these ill-conceived charges, and we will defend him vigorously in court.”
A representative for Tavistock Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Among those with whom Lewis is alleged to have shared information are a girlfriend, personal assistants aboard the $250mn superyacht on which he sometimes lives, and two of his private pilots.
For a period of at least…
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