Ex-Goldman analyst, others accused of inside trades

By Martha Graybow

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. regulators on Wednesday filed civil charges for insider trading against 11 people, including a 26-year-old former Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N) investment banking analyst accused of leaking confidential merger information to his brother.

The charges against five of the defendants involve trading ahead of the announcement last year that Liberty Mutual Insurance Company would buy Safeco Corp, a Seattle-based insurer, for $6.2 billion.

The other charges, against six different defendants, involve trading ahead of the buyout of Neff Corp, a Miami-based rental equipment company, by private equity firm Odyssey Investment Partners LLC, announced in 2005. These cases are unrelated to the lawsuits stemming from the Safeco trades.

Regulators said they uncovered the activity through surveillance of unusual trades.

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Anthony Perez, formerly a junior analyst with Goldman Sachs in New York, illegally tipped his brother, Ian, with material nonpublic information that he learned from his job about the potential acquisition of Safeco in April 2008.

Ian Perez, 23, of Orlando, traded Safeco call options on the illicit information and made more than $150,000, the SEC contends in papers filed in federal court in Orlando.

The SEC said the Perez brothers have agreed to settle the case without admitting or denying the allegations. Anthony Perez will pay a penalty of $25,000 and Ian Perez agreed to pay disgorgement and prejudgment interest totaling $152,992.

Their lawyers could not immediately be reached for comment.