Pfizer appeals denial of $75 million claim in SEC case against Cohen hedge fund
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Pfizer (NYSE:PFE) on Tuesday appealed a federal judge’s refusal to award the drugmaker $75.2 million from a more than decade-old insider trading settlement involving billionaire Steven A. Cohen’s former hedge fund, SAC Capital Management.
The money was left over from SAC’s $602 million settlement in March 2013 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over trades in drugmakers Wyeth and Elan by Mathew Martoma, who worked at an SAC unit and was later convicted.
Pfizer said it deserved the $75.2 million because a neurologist who tipped Martoma about a 2008 Alzheimer’s drug trial owed a fiduciary duty to Wyeth, which Pfizer bought in 2009, because he had been a consultant there.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan, however, ruled in November that Wyeth was not a victim of Martoma’s trading, and thus Pfizer was not entitled to funds left over after Wyeth and Elan investors who lost money were compensated.
Pfizer appealed Marrero’s decision to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan. The appeals process often takes several months or longer.
Cohen was not criminally charged. He changed SAC Capital’s name to Point72 Asset Management in 2014, and is now worth $21.3 billion according to Forbes magazine.
