(Bloomberg) -- Federal prosecutors dropped insider-trading charges against a former research analyst who admitted that he passed confidential information to an SAC Capital Advisors LP fund manager.
Sandeep Aggarwal pleaded guilty in November 2013 to securities fraud and agreed to cooperate with the government but hadn't been sentenced yet. In a court filing made public Friday, prosecutors explained the dismissal by citing changes in the law in recent years that made it more difficult to bring some insider trading cases.
The government also pointed out that Aggarwal faced a lifetime U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ban on working for any broker, dealer or investment adviser and had agreed to pay a $32,429 fine.
The former Collins Stewart LLC analyst admitted tipping off SAC's Richard Lee and others about a 2009 search-engine alliance between Yahoo! Inc. and Microsoft Corp. The government's decision to drop the charges against Aggarwal follows Lee's successful bid to withdraw his guilty plea last June. The U.S. dropped charges against Lee in November, citing changes in the law.
Read More: SAC's Lee Admitted to Insider Trading. Then He Cleared His Name
The cases against Aggrarwal and Lee were part of a larger 2013 U.S. showdown with SAC. While founder Steven Cohen himself wasn't accused of wrongdoing, SAC itself later pleaded guilty and paid a record $1.8 billion fine to resolve insider-trading claims. The firm later changed its name to Point72 Asset Management LP and agreed to manage only Cohen's money.
“Mr. Aggarwal is very grateful that the U.S. Attorney's office agreed with his arguments that dismissal of all charges was the right and just result in his case,” said his lawyer, Jeffrey Udell.
The case is U.S. v. Aggarwal, 13-cr-00884, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
--With assistance from Chris Dolmetsch.
To contact the reporter on this story: Bob Van Voris in federal court in Manhattan at rvanvoris@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: David Glovin at dglovin@bloomberg.net, Anthony Lin
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