The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed charges against a former Goldman Sachs and Blackstone employee for insider trading over Xbox chatroom messaging.
According to the charges against Anthony Viggiano, he allegedly obtained information about eight M&A transactions and strategic partnerships ahead of their public announcements, tipping a friend of his with six of them.
The friend in question, Christopher Salamone, who has also been charged by the SEC, then traded ahead of the transactions, managing to rake in approximately $322,000 as per the litigation release. Both parties then allegedly shared the proceeds among each other.
The indictment also names two other persons as being involved in the illegal trading scheme tipped by Viggiano, resulting in a total of around $138,000 in profits.
Filed in the federal district court in Manhattan, SEC’s complaint seeks “injunctive relief, disgorgement with prejudgment interest, and civil penalties” against all four defendants. A separate case charging the four individuals has also been opened by the US Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York.
The suspicious trading behaviour was flagged down by SEC’s Market Abuse Unit’s Analysis and Detection Center using data analytics tools.
