Trading on expert info never ever, ever ends well for anybody — specifically if you’re a lawyer at a Biglaw company.
Romero Cabral Da Costa Neto, 33, of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, began working as a going to lawyer at Gibson Dunn in September 2022. Back in August, Costa was detained and charged with expert trading, implicated of accessing private customer info from within Gibson Dunn’s internal filing system to make trades ahead of a significant pharmaceutical M&An offer. Earlier today, he pleaded guilty to the charges. The National Law Journal has the information:
Costa pleaded guilty before U.S. District Judge Carl J. Nichols of the District of Columbia, who arranged sentencing for Dec. 20. Costa deals with a statutory optimum charge of twenty years in jail for expert trading, along with prospective punitive damages.
Costa is likewise dealing with added fees of securities infractions in a parallel civil grievance submitted by the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Philadelphia local workplace.
U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves provided the following declaration: “This attorney stole material non-public information, betrayed his law firm, victimized its client companies, and monetized those insider secrets to gain an illegal advantage on other investors.”
As kept in mind by the NLJ, Gibson Dunn is continuing to help with the examination. “We are cooperating with authorities and have terminated our relationship with the individual, who was an international visiting attorney from another law firm,” a company representative stated.
Costa is represented by lawyers from Boies Schiller & Flexner.
Ex-Visiting Attorney at Gibson Dunn Pleads Guilty to Insider Trading [National Law Journal]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked given that 2011. She’d like to speak with you, so please do not hesitate to email her with any suggestions, concerns, remarks, or reviews. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or get in touch with her on LinkedIn.
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