US: British billionaire Joe Lewis accused of insider trading

The British billionaire owner of the English Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur, Joe Lewis, has been indicted on charges of insider trading by US federal prosecutors in New York.

The 86-year-old mogul, based in the Bahamas, is accused of operating a "brazen" scheme that involved sharing confidential information with employees and romantic partners, allowing them to execute profitable trades, raking in millions of dollars.

'Lewis abused his access to corporate board rooms'

The charges against Lewis include securities fraud and conspiracy.

The announcement was made by Damian Williams, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

"We allege that for years Joe Lewis abused his access to corporate board rooms and repeatedly provided inside information to his romantic partners, his personal assistants, his private pilots and his friends," Williams said.

"Those folks then traded on that inside information and made millions of dollars in the stock market, because thanks to Lewis those bets were a sure thing."

Lewis' attorney David M. Zornow released a statement saying, "The government has made an egregious error in judgment in charging Mr. Lewis, an 86-year-old man of impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishment."

Zornow said his client had come to the US "to answer these ill-conceived charges."

How Lewis' scheme allegedly operated

Lewis' Tavistock Group has holdings in more than 200 firms around the globe, the company website says.

According to the indictment, Lewis allegedly used his influence to secure board seats in several companies and placed trusted associates in those positions.

These associates would then pass on valuable non-public information to Lewis, who, in turn, passed it on to a select group of recipients, urging them to use the tips to trade stocks and thereby making millions.

One particular incident highlighted in the indictment involved Lewis loaning $500,000 (€452,935) each to his two private pilots to purchase stock in a pharmaceutical company that had received encouraging results from a clinical trial but had not yet made the information public.

According to the filing, the pilot advised a friend to buy the stock too, texting, "Boss is helping us out and told us to get ASAP," adding "the Boss has inside info …Otherwise why would he make us invest."

According to the indictment, Lewis allegedly relayed the information to his girlfriend, personal assistant, poker partner, and a friend with whom he had a relationship.

The stock rose over 17% in a single day after the business released the clinical trial results, and they all finally sold at a profit.

According to the filing, on a separate occasion, Lewis acquired privileged information about a biotech company specializing in muscular dystrophy drugs, in which he held a significant investment. Despite his biotech hedge fund being bound by a confidentiality agreement, Lewis advised his girlfriend to purchase the company's stock.

After the stock price surged, his girlfriend made a substantial profit of approximately $850,000, as detailed in the indictment.

With a fortune estimated at $6 billion, Joe Lewis is considered one of Britain's wealthiest individuals.

He made a name for himself as a currency speculator in the 1980s and early 1990s before acquiring football club Tottenham Hotspur from famed British entrepreneur Alan Sugar in 2001.

ss/kb (AP, AFP)