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Ex-lawmaker convicted of insider trading before T-Mobile merger

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Former US Congressman Stephen Buyer was found guilty by a New York jury on Friday of trading inside information he learned in 2018 as a consultant to T-Mobile US Inc. before its 23-year merger. billion dollars with Sprint.

Buyer was a Republican from Indiana in the United States House of Representatives between 1993 and 2011 before working as a business consultant.

Prosecutors said in a trial that began March 1 that the buyer bought shares of Sprint after learning from a T-Mobile executive that the telecommunications companies were in merger talks in 2018 and engaged in another insider trading scheme in 2019.

A woman walks past a T-Mobile retail store in New York, NY, January 31, 2022. It was reported that T-Mobile US Inc. plans to lay off company employees who are not fully vaccinated against the COVID-19 by April 2.
A woman walks past a T-Mobile store in New York on January 31, 2022.Anthony Behar / Sipa USA via AP File

The buyer testified at trial and denied exchanging inside information. His attorney did not immediately return a request for comment on Friday.

The former congressman was found guilty of four counts of securities fraud. Judge Richard Berman will hold a sentencing hearing on July 11.

The buyer made more than $100,000 from Sprint transactions and more than $200,000 from shares in Navigant Consulting Inc., which he bought before Guidehouse acquired the company in 2019, prosecutors say.

Prosecutors urged the jury to focus on the timing of the buyer’s transactions, which took place when employees of its client companies learned of the mergers.

The buyer’s attorneys argued that no hard evidence was presented when it learned of the two mergers and said it relied on public research to pick the stocks.

The former congressman was one of many people, including a former Goldman Sachs banker, arrested on insider trading charges in July in a crackdown led by Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York.


Joanna Swanson

Joanna Swanson is Europe correspondent at the Thomson Reuters Foundation based in Brussels covering politics, culture, business, climate change, society, economies and inclusive tech. With specific focus in breaking news, she has covered some of the world's most significant stories.