Former New York management consulting firm partner pleads guilty to insider trading  

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Puneet Dikshit, former partner in a global management consulting firm not identified by name, pled guilty December 15, 2021, to one count of securities fraud in connection with his scheme to commit insider trading based on material, nonpublic information.

The insider information related to the upcoming public announcement that an investment bank, also unnamed, which Dikshit and the Consulting Firm were advising – would be acquiring GreenSky, Inc., a press release from the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York said.

Dikshit, 40, of New York, pled guilty before U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon. He pled guilty to one count of securities fraud, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison.  He is scheduled to be sentenced by Judge McMahon on March 30, 2022, at 2:00 p.m.

Dikshit’s used the ‘material nonpublic information’ about a pending acquisition of GreenSky, Inc., to trade in GreenSky call options, netting nearly half a million dollars in profits, according to the press release.

GreenSky was a publicly traded financial technology company that provided technology to banks and merchants to make loans to consumers for home improvement, solar, healthcare, and other purposes, the court documents quoted by the press release said.

Between on or about November 2019 and on or about July 2020, and again between on or about April 2021 and on or about September 2021, the Investment Bank engaged the (unnamed) Consulting Firm to provide various consulting services related to its consideration of an acquisition of GreenSky and the post-acquisition integration of GreenSky.  Dikshit was one of the Consulting Firm partners leading these engagements. “In that role, he had access to material nonpublic information, which he misappropriated and, in violation of the duties that he owed to the Investment Bank and the Consulting Firm, used to trade GreenSky call options,” court papers quoted from show.

He engaged in this trading between on or about July 26, 2021, and on or about September 15, 2021 – at the same time he was leading the Consulting Firm team that was advising the Investment Bank about its potential acquisition of GreenSky.