Faces jail time of 25 years.
By Deepak Chitnis
WASHINGTON, DC: Financial analyst Sandeep Aggarwal has been convicted of insider trading, after pleading guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud.
Aggarwal was arrested in July after federal investigators found out that he had given former SAC Capital portfolio manager Richard Lee an inside tip about a deal happening between tech giants Microsoft and Yahoo. Aggarwal did this because, at the time, he was just an analyst at Collins Stewart LLC in San Francisco, and wanted to move up the chain faster by giving a higher-up privileged information.
After his arrest, which happened in San Jose, California, Aggarwal was released the following day on a half-million-dollar bond. Lee subsequently purchased 25,000 shares of Yahoo stock, while SAC purchased hundreds of thousands of shares. Through depositions related to the case, the US government has uncovered an apparent culture of insider trading at SAC, which has led to a $1.2 billion insider trading settlement between the company and the US government.
Aggarwal’s guilt means his name is now added to the ever-growing list of Indian Americans who have come under the finger of the law for disreputable practices, such as Rajat Gupta, and Sri Lankan American Raj Rajaratnam, who is serving time in jail. Gupta was in the news just last week, when he requested that the US Appeals Court overturn a $13.9 million fine it levied against him as a result of his insider trading conviction last year.
A 40-year-old who originally hails from Gurgaon, Haryana, Aggarwal is perhaps best known as the CEO of ShopClues, an Indian subsidiary of Clues Network, Inc. The company is an online retail site that was launched in 2011 as a “managed marketplace.” This means that ShopClues itself does no store or purchase any inventory for the goods featured on its site, but allows buyers and sellers to interact via the site while ShopClues manages it. It was co-founded by Sanjay Sethi, who has assumed Aggarwal’s position as the company’s CEO.
As he confessed his guilt in court, Aggarwal said “I did this to improve my standing as an analyst and to increase revenue for my firm. I knew what I was doing was wrong, and I’m extremely sorry for my conduct.”
Aggarwal was convicted by attorney Preet Bharara, also an Indian American. He is scheduled to be sentenced in May of 2014, at which point he could receive up to 25 years in prison.
To contact the author, email to deepakchitnis@americanbazaaronline.com
1 Comment
Not working properly and not refund my money
I was purchase mobile phone on 7 may with order no.13607031. They given
me a wrong product. Now, the time of refund they sending mails &
mails telling me given time 2-3 days. Then after that, I call shopclues
they want more time 7-9 days or telling your money is refund any time
between 7-9 days. Now, I call on next day they saying me same things plz
wait 7-9 days & we apologize. . Shopclues company will thinking the
customers are really fool.. They have more brain … Shopclues company
will fake company