Senator Perdue’s stock trades said to prompt Justice Department investigation



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Mr. Grimes responded the next morning to apologize.

“David, sorry. This email was not intended for you. Wrong David! ” he wrote.

Mr Perdue then contacted his wealth manager at Goldman Sachs, Robert Hutchinson, and asked him to sell just over $ 1 million in Cardlytics stock, or around 20% of his position, three of the people said. . A person familiar with Mr. Perdue’s trades investigation said the conversation was commemorated in an internal Goldman Sachs file later obtained by the FBI.

Financial Disclosure Forms Mr. Perdue is required to file with the Senate a January 23 sale of $ 1-5 million of Cardlytics shares.

Investigators in Washington began examining Mr. Perdue in the spring; in June, the US attorney’s office in Atlanta was handling the case with prosecutors in the department’s criminal division in Washington.

Mr Hutchinson told the FBI that Mr Perdue and his wife only weighed in on broader investment issues, such as the proportion of stocks and bonds to hold in their portfolio, according to a person familiar with its maintenance. But a person familiar with the senator’s financial management arrangements with Goldman Sachs said Mr. Perdue retains some discretion over what transactions are made and when.

In that case, Mr Perdue’s legal team told investigators that Mr Hutchinson informed their client in October 2019 that he had to sell shares of Cardlytics to balance his holdings. The shares had risen in value and advisers argued that Mr. Perdue should take the profits from the sales and reinvest them elsewhere to limit his exposure to the fluctuation of a single stock. Mr. Perdue chose to go ahead with these changes in January, his lawyers said.

Mr Hutchinson declined to comment.

After conducting interviews, including with Mr. Perdue and Mr. Grimes, investigators came to the conclusion that the Senator had no non-public information about the performance of the company when he traded Cardlytics. . The investigation was closed later in the summer, according to people familiar with the matter.

If Mr. Grimes’ email was accidental, said Tai Park, a former federal prosecutor and white-collar partner at the law firm White & Case, Mr. Perdue “may be on more solid ground because it’s is objective evidence that the CEO was not trying to tip him. In any case, trading on the basis of information learned from a CEO of a company is extremely risky in all scenarios and could attract the attention of investigators.

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