Goldman Sachs Group Inc. told the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission that it doesn’t have “direct access” to information about the beneficial owner behind transactions in an account in which the SEC said suspicious trading of H.J. Heinz Co. occurred.
The SEC last week sued “unknown” traders over suspicious trading of Heinz’s options through what the regulator said was an account at Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs told SEC senior counsel Megan Bergstrom that the account holder is a Zurich private wealth client, Bergstrom said in a court filing Wednesday in federal court in Manhattan.
“Goldman informed me that it does not have direct access to information about the beneficial owner or owners behind any particular transaction or position” in the account, Bergstrom said in the filing.
The trades at issue in the SEC’s lawsuit came a day before Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and 3G Capital Inc. announced a $23 billion takeover of Heinz, the SEC said. The unidentified traders’ unrealized profit was more than $1.7 million, according to the SEC filing.
The trading was carried out through a Zurich-based account and involved call-option contracts, the SEC said.
The case is U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission v. Certain Unknown Traders in Securities of H.J. Heinz Co., 13-cv- 1080, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
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