“Moments ago, a unanimous jury found Sung Kook ‘Bill’ Hwang and Patrick Halligan guilty of a massive market manipulation scheme via the private investment firm Archegos. As the evidence at trial has shown, Hwang, founder and owner of Archegos, and Halligan, Archegos’s Chief Financial Officer, made false assurances and lied to Wall Street investment banks to induce them to provide capital to Archegos, which Hwang and Halligan then used to inflate the stock prices of several publicly traded companies. Hwang and Halligan lied about Archegos’s positions in these companies and just about every other materially important metric investment banks would use in determining the firm’s creditworthiness. In doing so, Hwang and Halligan were able to fraudulently inflate a $1.5 billion portfolio into a $36 billion portfolio. This verdict should send a resounding message that this Office will continue to police the financial markets with an eagle eye and swiftly hold accountable those who think they can cheat the system.”
