U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan on Thursday rejected billionaire investor Steven A. Cohen’s request to throw out lawsuits by Elan Corp and Wyeth shareholders who say they lost money because Cohen’s SAC Capital Advisors LP did insider trading in those two firms’ stocks, Reuters reports.
SAC now goes by the much sexier name Point72 Asset Management, still based in Stamford, Connecticut.
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The same judge also refused requests by defendant Mathew Martoma, a former SAC employee who was found guilty in February of insider trading, and defendant Sidney Gilman, a University of Michigan medical professor.
The lawsuit is based on federal charges that Martoma took in $275 million in illegal earnings for SAC using the professor’s confidential information on an Alzheimer’s drug trial ahead of the time the results were released in 2008.
The plaintiffs are saying they suffered damages because they traded in Elan and Wyeth stocks and options while SAC was prowling the same patch of the forest, except the little guys were operating without those great fangs of insider info.
Incidentally, Elan has since been acquired into Perrigo Co, and Wyeth is Pfizer Inc.
One of the reasons SAC is calling itself Point72 is because they pleaded guilty to fraud and paid out $1.8 billion in settlements with the feds.
Cohen has not been charged with any crimes, though. He is worth $11.1 Billion, according to Forbes. So it’s all good.
