By Allison Prang
A trader at a Canada-based hedge fund was arrested and charged Friday by U.S. authorities for allegedly misusing information about customer orders for personal gain.
The U.S. Department of Justice charged Sean Wygovsky with both wire fraud and securities fraud tied to the front-running scheme. Also, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged Mr. Wygovsky with violating antifraud provisions of federal securities laws through the scheme, which lasted until as recently as April of this year and netted over $3.6 million in illicit gains.
Mr. Wygovsky was arrested in Austin, Texas, on Friday morning.
Russell Duncan, Mr. Wygovsky's attorney, said that he hasn't had a chance to review the charge papers or meet with his client, but that they would respond in court after he has done that.
While the agencies didn't name the firm that employed Mr. Wygovsky, a LinkedIn profile for Sean Wygovsky lists him as a senior analyst and trader at Toronto-based Polar Asset Management Partners Inc.
Polar Asset, in an emailed statement, called the allegations disturbing and said it found out about them Friday. It said it is cooperating with authorities.
According to the Justice Department, Mr. Wygovsky has worked for his company since about 2013. The company has about $19 billion in assets under management.
The SEC said that Mr. Wygovsky allegedly traded stocks on behalf of a relative's account ahead of the client accounts' large order on the same side of the market for the same stock or when parts of the large order were being executed. Mr. Wygovsky, the regulator alleged, would close out the new positions in the relatives' accounts usually right before the client accounts finished their executions. He did this more than 600 times, the SEC said. This lasted from about January 2015 through at least April of this year, the SEC said.
"Wygovsky abused his position and his employer's trust by front-running the very securities transactions that he was tasked with executing for his employer's advisory clients," said the chief of the SEC Enforcement Division's Market Abuse Unit, Joseph Sansone.
Write to Allison Prang at allison.prang@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
July 02, 2021 21:34 ET (01:34 GMT)
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