U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said Thursday he will move to dismiss insider trading charges against Michael Steinberg, a portfolio analyst for SAC Capital Advisors, because the recent decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in United States v. Newman, 13-1837, made it impossible to sustain Steinberg’s convictions.
In a move that was expected since the U.S. Supreme Court refused on Oct. 6 to review Newman, which raised the bar for insider trading prosecutions, Bharara said he was dropping the charges against Steinberg and six cooperating witnesses who pleaded guilty and helped convict Steinberg (NYLJ, Oct. 6).
