Former Wachtell Lawyer Involved in Insider Trading Case Had Subsequent Financial Industry Ties

Insider Trading Case Involves Boutique Investment Bank and Prominent Law Firm

A former attorney at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, Avi Sutton, who joined the boutique investment bank LionTree in 2022, has been identified as an unindicted co-conspirator in a vast insider trading case. Prosecutors allege that Sutton, along with other lawyers, passed on M&A tips in a decade-long scheme that earned tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits.

The scheme, which spanned from 2014 to 2024, involved attorneys at major law firms working to obtain and misappropriate confidential details from their employers on nearly 30 yet-to-be-announced merger deals. Prosecutors say the scheme was orchestrated by Nicolo Nourafchan and Robert Yadgarov, who were among 19 people arrested on Wednesday.

According to the indictment, Nourafchan and Yadgarov worked for years to obtain confidential information about M&A deals under way at Nourafchan's law firms and other firms employing lawyers they recruited into their scheme. The indictment said lawyer CC-2, whom sources identified as Sutton, started in 2014 to provide the two lawyers tips about forthcoming M&A deals involving Wachtell's clients, in exchange for money.

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Here is a breakdown of the timeline of the scheme:

Sutton, who was an associate at Wachtell from 2013 to 2022, is not among those charged in the case. However, he is not cooperating with the investigation, and LionTree, where he serves as general counsel and chief operating officer, has not commented on the matter.

Wachtell, one of Wall Street's most prominent law firms advising on hundreds of billions of dollars in merger deals each year, has confirmed its role in the case and described the alleged conduct as a violation of their trust and policies. The firm has cooperated fully with the U.S. Attorney's office and will continue to do so.

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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a related civil case against several of the defendants, and the case is one of the largest insider trading cases to be charged in years.