..."Not the way I play it, no." ~W.C. Fields
New York - A jury began deliberations on Monday in Brooklyn federal court for the retrial of six men accused in a criminal case of an alleged plan to misuse information announced over brokerage-firm "squawk" boxes.
The case concerns announcements at many Wall Street firms that disclose when customers are about to buy or sell big blocks of stock. Federal prosecutors from the U.S. attorney's office for the Eastern District of New York claim that brokers at Merrill Lynch & Co. (now a part of Bank of America Corp.), Citigroup Inc.'s Smith Barney unit and the old Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. were paid to leave open telephone lines next to the internal speaker systems at their firms so that traders at the now-defunct A.B. Watley Inc. could secretly eavesdrop on block orders by institutional clients between 2002 and 2004.
Prosecutors say the Watley traders made nearly $1 million by trading ahead of, or front-running, the orders that were broadcast. (more) (background)
