TOTTENHAM OWNER JOE LEWIS INDICTED OVER ALLEGED INSIDER TRADING

Tottenham Hotspur owner Joe Lewis has been indicted for orchestrating a "brazen" insider trading scheme, the US attorney in Manhattan has said.

In a video posted on messaging platform X, formerly known as Twitter, Damian Williams said: "Today I'm announcing that my office, in the southern district of New York, has indicted Joe Lewis, the British billionaire, for orchestrating a brazen insider trading scheme.

"We allege that for years Joe Lewis abused access to corporate board rooms and repeatedly provided inside information to his romantic partners, his personal assistants, his pilots, and his friends. "Those folks then traded on that inside information and made millions on the stock market. Thanks to Lewis, those bets were sure.

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None of this was necessary. Joe Lewis is a wealthy man, but as we allege, he used insider information to compensate his employees, or to shower gifts on his friends and lovers. "That's classic corporate corruption. It's cheating and against the law."

Mr. Lewis' lawyer, David Zornow, said the government had "made an egregious error of judgment in charging Mr. Lewis, an 86-year-old man of impeccable integrity and prodigious accomplishments".

He added that Mr. Lewis had come to the US voluntarily to answer the "ill-conceived" charges, which would be "defended vigorously in court".

A Tottenham club spokesperson said: "This is a legal matter unconnected with the club, and as such, we have no comment."

What does the indictment say?

The indictment says Lewis and his associates made millions using stolen information. Lewis has been charged with 16 counts of securities fraud and three counts of conspiracy. Lewis is accused of sharing information between 2019 and 2021 about companies including Australian Agricultural Co., Mirati Therapeutics, and Solid Biosciences.

The indictment says Lewis used information he was given as a board member to tip off friends and associates about when to buy and sell shares. In 2019, the indictment says Lewis's girlfriend bought $700,000 worth of shares in Solid Biosciences after he told her about clinical trial results.

In the same year, Lewis is accused of advising two of his pilots to sell their shares in Australian Agricultural Co. because of flooding in Queensland. In an email to a stockbroker, one of the pilots wrote: "Just wish the boss had given us a slightly earlier heads up".

The indictment says that in October 2019, Lewis lent two of his pilots $1 million to buy Mirati shares. The share price jumped up 16.7 percent soon after when it announced clinical trial results. The indictment says one of the pilots texted a friend: "Boss lent Marty and me $500,000 for this".

Between 2013 and 2018, Lewis is accused of conspiring to defraud Mirati, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, and investors. He did this by hiding his Mirati stake using shell companies and other means.

Who is Joe Lewis?

Joe Lewis and Daniel Levy

Lewis owns the Tavistock Group, which has more than 200 assets across 13 countries. Through this group, he owns Tottenham Hotspur and UK pub operator Mitchells & Butlers. Forbes puts his wealth at £4.65 billion.

He bought a controlling stake in the Premier League club from Alan Sugar for £22 million in 2001. He now lives in the Bahamas, a far cry from his humble beginnings in London's East End.

Joe Lewis was born above a pub in Roman Road, Bow. He left school at 15 to run his father's West End catering business, Tavistock Banqueting. He sold the business in 1979, forming the basis of his initial fortune, before moving into currency trading.

In 1992, he allegedly teamed up with American billionaire George Soros to bet on the pound crashing out of the European Exchange Rate Mechanism (EERM).

Black Wednesday, as it became known, sank sterling and forced the British government to withdraw the pound from the EERM.

Source: Skysports