Financial Crime Weekly: WAMCO's Ken Leech Charged With Fraud, SEC Announces Annual Enforcement Results

WAMCO’s Ken Leech Charged With Fraud For Allegedly ‘Cherry-Picking' Trades

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday announced fraud charges against Stephen Kenneth ("Ken") Leech, the former co-chief investment officer of Western Asset Management Company LLC or WAMCO, owned by Franklin Resources, Inc. (NYSE:BEN). 

The SEC's complaint alleges that Leech engaged in a multi-year scheme to allocate favorable trades to certain portfolios, while allocating unfavorable trades to other portfolios in a practice known as "cherry-picking" from at least January 2021 through October 2023. 

The SEC claims Leech placed trades with brokers and then waited until later in the trading day to allocate the trades among clients in the portfolios he managed. According to the complaint, Leech's delay between placing and allocating trades allowed him the opportunity to observe price movements, and then disproportionately allocate profitable trades ...

Full story available on Benzinga.com