A former senior compliance analyst at Goldman Sachs has been charged with abusing his position of trust to make more than $471,000 in profits from insider trades.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Jose Luis Casero Sanchez, a Spanish national, had access to highly sensitive information about corporate mergers and other transactions as an analyst for Goldman in Warsaw, Poland. His duties included helping the firm ensure that employees kept the information confidential and did not engage in insider trading.
Between September 2020 and May 2021, the SEC said in a civil complaint, Sanchez used that access to trade on at least 45 events involving Goldman clients, generating more than $471,000 in illicit profits.
To avoid detection, he allegedly traded in multiple U.S.-based brokerage accounts held in the name of one of his parents.
“Despite Sanchez’s alleged efforts to avoid detection … the SEC’s keen analysis stitched together this pattern of suspicious trading and exposed gross violations of duty by a compliance professional who exploited the sensitive information he was hired to protect.” Joseph Sansone, chief of the SEC’s market abuse unit, said in a news release.
Sanchez began working as a senior compliance analyst at Goldman in September 2019. According to the SEC, he was assigned to the Warsaw “control room” through which the firm monitored the flow of confidential information, and his duties included updating a list of clients involved in M&A activity and other deals.
“Sanchez perpetrated this insider trading scheme by trading on information from the confidential database relating to mergers and acquisitions (including three tender offers), SPAC deals, and financing transactions,” the SEC said.
In the case of one client, AMAG Pharmaceuticals, Sanchez allegedly made more than $30,940 by selling AMAG call options he had acquired after accessing the database and learning of a proposed tender offer for the company by Covis Group.
Other transactions allegedly involved in the scheme included Home Depot’s offer for HD Supply Holdings, Goodyear Tire’s acquisition of Cooper Tire & Rubber, and public offerings by Chegg and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings.
Chris Hondros via Getty Images
