A Brookline, MA-based businessman, an attorney for Amit Kanodia who had been convicted of insider trading on Monday, intended to file an appeal as to remaining charges.
attorney Martin Weinberg, counsel for Kanodia, told INDIA New England News in an email, “We are grateful to the jury for finding Mr. Kanodia not guilty today as to 8 counts which included many of the central allegations of the accusation against Mr. Kanodia. We fully intend to file an appeal as to the remaining charges and are confident in the strength of the legal issues that will be the basis of this future appeal.”
Kanodia, had been convicted of engaging in insider trading with two friends after learning of India-based Apollo Tyres Ltd’s (APLO.NS) planned attempt to buy Cooper Tire & Rubber Co (CTB.N) in 2013, Reuters news agency reported.
Reuters said, “Amit Kanodia, 49years old, had been found guilty by a federal jury in Boston on 11 of the 19 counts he faced, including conspiracy and securities fraud. He was acquitted of the other eight counts of securities fraud, prosecutors said,” .
Kanodia, who had pleaded not guilty, has been scheduled to be sentenced on Jan. 18.
Prosecutors said that Kanodia learned details about the proposed merger between Apollo and Cooper Tire from his then-wife, who was Apollo’s chief legal officer, more than two months before the deal was announced.
Prosecutors said Kanodia tipped off two of his friends, including Iftikar Ahmed, a general partner of Greenwich, Connecticut-based Oak Investment Partners, according to Reuters.
Prosecutors informed that Ahmed and the other friend, Steven Watson, traded on the confidential information before the deal was announced and shared about $245,000 of their more than $1.17 million in illegal proceeds with Kanodia. Those payments had been made to an account Kanodia opened for a charity, Lincoln Charitable Foundation, ostensibly to raise money for flood victims in India, even though he used much of the money for his own financial investments.
Both Kanodia and Ahmed had been charged in connection with the insider trading scheme in April 2015, and Watson pleaded guilty that August as part of a cooperation deal with prosecutors.
According to Reuters, Ahmed fled the United States for India in May 2015. Prosecutors have since separately accused him of embezzling $54 million from Oak Investment Partners .
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