Associate Charged in $32M Insider Trading at 3 BigLaw Firms

Being a greedy associate at a law firm can mean more than just wanting a monster spring bonus. Sometimes it means being really, really greedy.

A former associate has been charged in an alleged $32-million insider trading scheme based on information he obtained while working at three of America's largest law firms, officials said. Matthew Kluger, who specialized in merger and acquisitions for Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, will be arraigned in federal court in Newark Wednesday, The Star-Ledger reports.

Kluger is also accused of misappropriating information on mergers from Cravath Swaine & Moore; and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom.

Greed isn't always good, as Matthew Kluger is learning this week.

Until February, Kluger was a lawyer in the mergers and acquisitions department at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. He is accused of "stealing" material nonpublic information about deals that his firm was working on, according to federal prosecutors in New Jersey,
The Star-Ledger reports.

Kluger, the government's complaint said, shared the information with Garrett Bauer, a trader who then used the tidbits to place bets on certain firms involved in the deals.

Prosecutors also charged the men with obstruction of justice, alleging that they moved to cover up their insider trading once they discovered the government was investigating, the NY Times reports.

Kluger destroyed a computer, iPhone and prepaid cellular phone that he used to operate the scheme, prosecutors said, the NY Times reports. Mr. Bauer is accused of instructing an unnamed middleman to "burn" some $175,000 in cash proceeds from the scheme.

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