By Greg Hazley
Sard Verbinnen & Company is working with hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors as the Stamford, Conn., institution seeks to distance itself from two former employees hit with federal charges of insider trading this week.
Federal prosecutors said Tuesday that Noah Freeman and Donald Longueuil are accused of insider trading while employed at SAC last year. Freeman has pleaded guilty and is cooperating with the government.
In a statement issued through SV&C, the hedge fund said the employees were dismissed in January and June 2010 due to poor performance.
“We are outraged by the alleged actions of two former employees, which required active circumvention of our compliance policies and are egregious violations of our ethical standards,” the firm said, noting the federal allegations say the two started the improper conduct in 2006 and continued when they joined SAC in mid-2008.
SAC, which has not been charged, is a $14B collection of funds run by billionaire Steven Cohen, described by the Wall Street Journal in 2006 as the “hedge fund king.”
Jonathan Gasthalter, managing director for SV&C in New York, is handling the account.
The charges against Freeman and Longueuil are connected to the high-profile Galleon Group case, which opened with the October 2009 arrest of its billionaire co-founder Raj Rajaratnam.
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