(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a credit ratings agency employee with tipping two friends about The Sherwin-Williams Co.\u2019s confidential plans to acquire The Valspar Corp., which he learned of through his work. The SEC also charged the two friends with trading on the illicit tips, which reaped them substantial profits.<\/p>\n
According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, Sebastian Pinto-Thomaz, an analyst in the credit ratings agency\u2019s New York office, learned of the acquisition when Sherwin-Williams consulted the agency about the potential effect of the transaction on its credit rating. The SEC alleges that soon after, Pinto-Thomaz tipped his friends, who bought Valspar securities before the merger was announced. Valspar\u2019s shares rose 23 percent on the news and the friends, Abell Oujaddou, a co-owner and co-manager of an upscale New York hair salon, and Jeremy Millul, a New York jeweler, sold their holdings and respectively made approximately $192,000 and $107,000 in profits.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs alleged in our complaint, Pinto-Thomaz\u2019s tips violated his obligations to his employer and allowed his friends to reap nearly $300,000 in illicit trading profits,\u201d said Joseph G. Sansone, Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division\u2019s Market Abuse Unit. \u201cEmployees of credit ratings agencies often receive confidential corporate information ahead of mergers, acquisitions, and other market-moving events, and, similar to investment bankers, attorneys, and other corporate advisors, must not abuse this access by trading on the information or by tipping others.\u201d<\/p>\n
The SEC\u2019s complaint, filed in federal district court in Manhattan, charges Pinto Thomaz, Oujaddou, and Millul with fraud and seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains, prejudgment interest, penalties, and injunctive relief. In a parallel action, the U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Southern District of New York today announced criminal charges against Pinto-Thomaz, Oujaddou, and Millul.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.Net) The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged a credit ratings agency employee with tipping two friends about The Sherwin-Williams Co.\u2019s confidential plans to acquire The Valspar Corp., which he learned of through his work. The SEC also charged the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64365","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64365","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64365"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64365\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64367,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64365\/revisions\/64367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}