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Longtime Cravath employee arrested on US insider trading charges

By Reuters News

By Nate Raymond

Nov 12 (Reuters) - A longtime employee at Cravath, Swaine & Moore was arrested on Thursday on US charges that he misused his access to non-public information about pending mergers involving the law firm's clients to make more than $70,000 through insider trading.

Federal prosecutors in Brooklyn alleged that Chetram "Tony" Balli, 54, placed trades ahead of at least five deals that had yet to be announced based on information he obtained through his role working as a document processing specialist at Cravath.

A criminal complaint charged him with engaging in securities fraud. A lawyer for Balli did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

New York-based Cravath in a statement said that Balli was no longer with the firm. "Cravath is working in full cooperation with the authorities investigating the matter and there are no allegations of wrongdoing against the firm," it added.

The charges mark the latest in a long line of insider trading cases against lawyers and other employees of major law firms accused of making illegal bets on the stock market based on confidential information they gleaned at work.

According to prosecutors, Balli had worked at Cravath as a document processing specialist since 1989, helping create and revise legal documents and prepare corporate filings to be submitted through the US Securities and Exchange Commission's EDGAR system.

The earliest trades cited in the complaint took place in May 2025, when Balli allegedly bought $33,632 worth of shares in E2open Parent Holdings two weeks before Cravath client WiseTech Global Limited announced a proposed $2.1 billion acquisition of the supply chain management software company.

Balli sold his entire position in E2open the day after the deal was announced, netting $14,978, the complaint said.

Prosecutors said Balli also traded ahead of news of four other mergers, including Paramount Skydance's February announcement of its $110 billion planned acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery and Pacira BioSciences' announcement last month of its acquisition by Viatris for $1.65 billion.

Cravath represented Paramount and Viatris in those transactions. While Balli lost money on some trades, like the Paramount one, he overall netted $71,756 in profits by placing bets ahead of those five deals, the complaint said.

The case is United States v. Balli, US District Court for the Eastern District of New York, No. 1:26-mj-00204.

For the United States: Jonathan Lax and Nick Axelrod of the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.

For Balli: Michael Schneider of the Federal Defenders of New York.

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