Indian-origin analyst Ashish Aggarwal charged with insider trading

MUMBAI: SEC alleges Ashish Aggarwal passed on confidential info on deals in tech cos to close friend A Wall Street analyst of Indian descent has been charged by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) with insider trading for tipping his close friend with confidential information about deals of technology companies making more than $600,000 in profits.
The SEC alleged that Ashish Aggarwal, a former analyst with JP Morgan, gleaned sensitive non public information about Integrated Device Technology's planned acquisition of PLX Technology in 2012 and Salesforce.com's June 2013 acquisition of ExactTarget from colleagues who were working on these deals.
Aggarwal, a University of California Berkeley graduate, worked as a technology, media & telecommunications analyst with JP Morgan's San Franciso office from June 2011 to June 2013.

SEC alleged that the 27-year-old Aggarwal, passed on confidential information to Shahriyar Bolandian, who traded on the basis of the illegal tips and also passed it on to his friend Kevan Sadigh so he could trade. Aggarwal and Bolandian became close friends after meeting as Berkeley students, while Bolandian and Sadigh were childhood friends.

The commission said weeks before the public announcements of the two transactions, Aggarwal repeatedly exchanged telephone calls and text messages with Bolandian, who in turn repeatedly texted and called each other.

"In several instances, the communications between Bolandian and Sadigh took place within minutes of Aggarwal's communications with Bolan dian," the SEC said.

JP Morgan declined to comment.

"Aggarwal breached his duty of trust and confidence owed to JPMS by divulging material, nonpublic information about the two impending Transactions to Bolandian. Aggarwal knew, or was reckless in not knowing, that Bolandian would either trade on the material, nonpublic information that Aggarwal divulged, and that Bolandian would provide the information to others who would trade based on the information," the SEC said.

It also said that records revealed that the day after the public announcement of the ExactTarget deal. Bolandian made calls to two Las Vegas, Nevada hotels and then exchanges text messages with Aggarwal.

A little over two weeks later, between June 21 and June 24, 2013, Aggarwal and Bolandian took a recreational trip to Las Vegas. Casino hotel records show that Bolandian paid for two or more hotel rooms for multiple guests with his credit card during that trip, but do not indicate that Aggarwal paid for any rooms. Sadigh also joined them during their trip.

The commission has asked the court to direct Aggarwal and Bolandian and Sadigh to jointly and severally disgorge,with prejudgement interest all illicit trading profits or other ill-gotten gains received by any person or entity.