The 86-year-old owner of the football team Tottenham Hotspur is accused of disclosing private information to his staff members and love interests, enabling them to negotiate deals worth millions of dollars.
US federal prosecutors in New York have filed an insider trading indictment against Joe Lewis, the British billionaire who owns the English Premier League team Tottenham Hotspur.
The 86-year-old billionaire, who is located in the Bahamas, is charged with running a “brazen” plan that includes disclosing private information to partners in love as well as employees, enabling them to make lucrative transactions and earning millions of dollars.
Lewis is accused of conspiring and of committing securities fraud. The US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Damian Williams, made the statement.
Williams added, “We say that for years Joe Lewis exploited his access to business boardrooms and routinely gave inside information to his sexual partners, his personal aides, his private pilots, and his friends.
Because their stock market trades were based on insider information, they were able to profit handsomely because Lewis had guaranteed the outcome of their bets.
In a statement, Lewis’ lawyer David M. Zornow said, “The government has made an egregious error in judgement in charging Mr. Lewis, an 86-year-old man of impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishment.” Zornow claimed that his client had gone to the United States “to answer these ill-conceived charges.”
According to the organisation’s website, Lewis’ Tavistock Group owns stakes in more than 200 businesses worldwide.
The indictment claims that Lewis exploited his connections to get friends and trusted colleagues appointed to board positions in a number of businesses.
The information was then sent to Lewis by these individuals, who in turn gave it to a small group of receivers with the advice to utilise it to trade stocks and make millions.
One specific instance mentioned in the indictment involves Lewis lending his two private pilots each $500,000 (€452,935) so they could buy stock in a pharmaceutical business that had obtained positive findings from a clinical trial but hadn’t yet made the information public.
The indictment claims that Lewis shared the details with his girlfriend, personal assistant, poker partner, and a buddy he was close to.
After the company disclosed the clinical trial results, the stock increased by nearly 17% in a single day, and all of the final sales were profitable.
According to the lawsuit, Lewis obtained confidential information about a biotech company that specializes in treatments for muscular dystrophy while also holding a sizable interest in that business. Lewis recommended his fiancée to buy the company’s stock even though his biotech hedge fund was subject to a confidentiality agreement.
According to the accusation, his girlfriend profited significantly after the stock price rose, taking home about $850,000.
Joe Lewis is regarded as one of the richest people in Britain, with a net worth of an estimated $6 billion.
Before acquiring Tottenham Hotspur from renowned British businessman Alan Sugar in 2001, he established himself as a currency speculator in the 1980s and early 1990s.
