AGL 38.09 Decreased By ▼ -0.07 (-0.18%)
AIRLINK 136.34 Increased By ▲ 2.15 (1.6%)
BOP 9.20 Increased By ▲ 0.35 (3.95%)
CNERGY 4.72 Increased By ▲ 0.03 (0.64%)
DCL 8.85 Increased By ▲ 0.18 (2.08%)
DFML 38.34 Decreased By ▼ -1.44 (-3.62%)
DGKC 85.45 Increased By ▲ 0.30 (0.35%)
FCCL 35.15 Increased By ▲ 0.25 (0.72%)
FFBL 76.21 Increased By ▲ 0.61 (0.81%)
FFL 12.66 Decreased By ▼ -0.08 (-0.63%)
HUBC 108.70 Decreased By ▼ -0.75 (-0.69%)
HUMNL 14.73 Increased By ▲ 0.63 (4.47%)
KEL 5.58 Increased By ▲ 0.18 (3.33%)
KOSM 7.96 Increased By ▲ 0.21 (2.71%)
MLCF 40.78 Decreased By ▼ -0.59 (-1.43%)
NBP 70.94 Increased By ▲ 1.24 (1.78%)
OGDC 195.25 Increased By ▲ 1.63 (0.84%)
PAEL 26.96 Increased By ▲ 0.75 (2.86%)
PIBTL 7.46 Increased By ▲ 0.04 (0.54%)
PPL 168.02 Increased By ▲ 4.17 (2.55%)
PRL 26.19 Decreased By ▼ -0.17 (-0.64%)
PTC 20.34 Increased By ▲ 0.87 (4.47%)
SEARL 92.75 Increased By ▲ 8.35 (9.89%)
TELE 7.84 Decreased By ▼ -0.15 (-1.88%)
TOMCL 35.49 Increased By ▲ 1.44 (4.23%)
TPLP 8.91 Increased By ▲ 0.19 (2.18%)
TREET 17.29 Increased By ▲ 0.11 (0.64%)
TRG 59.27 Decreased By ▼ -1.73 (-2.84%)
UNITY 31.02 Increased By ▲ 2.06 (7.11%)
WTL 1.37 No Change ▼ 0.00 (0%)
BR100 10,901 Increased By 125.5 (1.16%)
BR30 32,654 Increased By 420 (1.3%)
KSE100 101,357 Increased By 1274.6 (1.27%)
KSE30 31,488 Increased By 295 (0.95%)

US prosecutors laid charges Thursday against a prominent Las Vegas gambler and the ex-chairman of Dean Foods in an insider trading case that enmeshed top professional golfer Phil Mickelson. The Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission said that over six years Thomas Davis, the former Dean chairman, supplied inside tips on Dean and on Darden Restaurants to William Walters, the gambler, that led to $40 million in profits or avoided losses.
Davis provided the tips in part to get help with his financial problems, "including $100,000 Davis had wrongfully taken from a Dallas-based charity he managed that raised funds for a battered women and children's shelter," the SEC said. Walters meanwhile implicated three-time Masters champion Mickelson in the scheme by urging him to trade in Dean stock to help him repay gambling debts to Walters. Mickelson is not charged in the scheme but was named as a "relief defendant", and as such gave up the nearly $1 million he made on the trade.
Mickelson neither admitted nor denied the allegations in the SEC complaint and agreed to pay the $931,738 in ill-gotten gains, plus $105,292 in interest, the SEC said. The scheme developed around Davis's mounting personal and gambling debts, which he first raided the charity to cover and then sought help from Walters, ultimately borrowing more than $1 million from Walters. "Walters funded Davis, despite the fact that Davis had proven himself a huge credit risk," the SEC charges said.
It said that as Davis provided Walters with nonpublic information on Dean and Darden that generated huge trading profits, "Walters made no attempts to collect even a penny of the funds that he had directly and indirectly provided to Davis." Mickelson's attorneys, Gregory Craig and Pat Swan, said the golfing champion was "an innocent bystander to alleged wrongdoing by others that he was unaware of." "The SEC has now completed its investigation... and has concluded that Phil Mickelson did not engage in any wrongdoing," said a statement the lawyers released on behalf of Mickelson.
"The SEC has filed a civil complaint against certain individuals, including an acquaintance of Phil's, but that complaint does not assert that Phil Mickelson violated the securities laws in any way. On that point, Phil feels vindicated." However, "Phil has no desire to benefit from any transaction that the SEC sees as questionable" and agreed to return all the money, said the statement.

Copyright Agence France-Presse, 2016

Comments

Comments are closed.