Brian Klein Quoted by Reuters about Archegos Founder Bill Hwang’s Trial

Partner Brian Klein, a former federal prosecutor, speaking to Reuters in a May 7, 2024 story about Archegos founder Bill Hwang’s criminal trial in the Southern District of New York and the prosecutions novel market manipulation theory said, “You could definitely say the prosecutors are pushing the envelope here …”

Market manipulation cases usually involve some form of concealment or trickery, but the alleged trades Archegos occurred in the open market and did not appear to involve deception.

As the head of Archegos, Hwang is the alleged architect of a multibillion-dollar fraud that shook Wall Street in March 2021. Prosecutors claim that Hwang and his deputies lied to banks about the scale of Archegos’ derivative positions to borrow billions that the investment firm then used to inflate the underlying stocks through open market purchases. The firm’s meltdown left global banks with billions in losses and prosecutors allege that Archegos’ collapse caused billions more in shareholder losses at companies in its portfolio.