Defunct hedge fund firm Archegos Capital Management founder Bill Hwang was found guilty Wednesday (July 10) of securities and market manipulation fraud, which prosecutors claimed cost global investment banks billions.
The Associated Press reported that Hwang was convicted of 10 criminal counts of fraud and six out of seven charges of market manipulation.
A New York court heard federal prosecutors, led by assistant US attorney Alexandra Rothman, accuse Hwang and his co-conspirators of artificially inflating the values of several stocks before the investment collapsed in 2021, wiping out $100 billion in market value.
The court also convicted the company's former CFO, Patrick Halligan. His lawyer, Mary Mulligan, told the BBC that her client would like to appeal the case.
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Hwang's Inflation of Investors' Money
Prosecutors added that Hwang deceived banks to get billions of dollars to grow his investment firm, with the portfolio growing from $10 billion to $160 billion. It was also claimed that Hwang and his company secretly controlled over half of the shares of ViacomCBS at one point in Archegos's operations.
CNN also reported that the company had stakes in companies like Tencent and Discovery (before its merger with Warner Bros., CNN's parent firm).
On the other hand, Hwang's defense lawyer, Barry Berke, argued that his client was an honest investor putting money into stocks he claimed to believe in.
Berke added that Hwang did not live "the life of a billionaire" and did not make any misrepresentations about his business.
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