Pfizer to collect $29 million from SEC case against Steven A. Cohen hedge fund

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK, Feb 10 (Reuters) – Pfizer agreed to accept $29 million to resolve a dispute with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission stemming from the regulator’s 2013 insider trading settlement with billionaire Steven A. Cohen’s former hedge fund SAC Capital Management.

The proposed payment disclosed in a Tuesday court filing represents nearly two-fifths of the $75.2 million left over from SAC’s $601.8 million settlement over trades in drugmakers Wyeth and Elan by Mathew Martoma, a former SAC employee who was later convicted of securities fraud and conspiracy.  The U.S. Treasury would get the remaining $46.2 million.

Pfizer had been appealing a November 2024 ruling by U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan that it deserved none of the funds left over after Wyeth and Elan investors were compensated for their losses because Wyeth wasn’t one of Martoma’s victims.

Marrero agreed with the SEC that the entire $75.2 million should go to the U.S. Treasury.

Pfizer had argued it deserved the entire $75.2 million because a neurologist who tipped Martoma about a 2008 Alzheimer’s drug trial owed a fiduciary duty to Wyeth, which Pfizer bought in 2009 and where he had been a consultant.

Tuesday’s settlement would end Pfizer’s appeal, and requires the judge’s approval.  Pfizer said the settlement serves the public interest in enforcing securities laws, ordering monetary relief to address violations, and distributing funds to victims.

The SEC had no immediate comment.

Martoma worked at SAC’s CR Intrinsic Investors unit. He was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2014 after his conviction.

Cohen was not criminally charged. He changed SAC Capital’s name to Point72 Asset Management in 2014, and bought the New York Mets baseball team in 2020.  Cohen is worth $23 billion according to Forbes magazine.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Mark Porter)