TORONTO (CU)_A trader at one of Canada’s leading multi-strategy hedge fund firm was charged with insider trading by US prosecutors on Friday (2 July). Manhattan prosecutors said in a statement that 40-year-old Sean Wygovsky, a trader at Toronto-based Polar Asset Management Partners, was arrested on Friday in Austin, Texas. He is currently being held temporarily without bond.
His arrest concerns his involvement in stealing confidential information to front-run his trades at the hedge fund firm between January 2015 and April 2021. As a result, he has allegedly reaped US$3.6 million. According to federal prosecutors in New York, Wygovsky had used the accounts of three close relatives to conceal his activities and had paid thousands of dollars in illegal trading profits to these relatives as compensation.
In addition to criminal charges on securities fraud and wire fraud, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has also filed a civil suit against Wygovsky based on similar allegations. Although the charging documents only referred to Wygovsky’s employer as a large Canadian asset management firm, he is known to have been working at Polar, a firm with around US$19 billion under management, since 2013.
According to the US Government, Wygovsky has made more than 700 illegal trades ahead of Polar trades in the shares of Now Inc., Carparts.com and Merit Medical Systems Inc., among others. His lawyer, Russell Duncan, said he intends to respond to the charges once he has the opportunity to meet with Wygovsky and to review the charges. If convicted, both securities fraud and wire fraud carry a maximum of 20 years in prison.
