Tottenham owner charged over alleged insider trading

Joe Lewis has been charged in the US

Prosecutors in New York have accused the billionaire of tipping off friends, associates and employees with non-public information about companies he had business links to.

Those he told therefore were allegedly able to benefit from buying or selling related stocks, as revealed by the BBC.

A lawyer on behalf of Lewis said that charging him was a "egregious error in judgement" and that the charges would be "defended vigorously in court".

He added that the Tottenham owner, who lives in Barbados, came over to the US voluntarily to to defend himself.

A statement from a Tottenham spokesperson said that the charges would have no effect on the club itself.

It read: "This is a legal matter unconnected with the club and as such we have no comment."

Last October, the club made a filing to Companies House in which they confirmed that Lewis was "no longer a person with significant control at the club," according to Spurs.

Lewis was charged with 16 counts of security fraud as well as three counts of conspiracy for crimes alleged to have taken place between 2013 to 2021.

Allegations against Lewis, 86, were revealed in a video statement posted to the US State Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York.

US attorney Damian Williams said: "We allege that, for years, Joe Lewis abused his access to corporate board rooms and repeatedly provided inside information to his romantic partners, his personal assistants, his private pilots, and his friends.

"Thanks to [Mr] Lewis, those bets were a sure thing," he claimed. "None of this was necessary. Joe Lewis is a wealthy man."

In 2023, he was ranked 39th in the 2023 Sunday Times Rich List, with an estimated worth of more than £5bn.

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