By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) -A U.S. regulator on Wednesday charged a former Goldman Sachs Group Inc (NYSE:GS) senior compliance analyst with insider trading, saying he made illegal trades involving banking clients while working in Warsaw, Poland.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Jose Luis Casero Sanchez, 35, of Spain, learned material nonpublic information about his employer's clients through his work in a "control room" that tracked pending mergers, acquisitions and financings.
Casero's duties included updating the bank's confidential "Grey List," which tracked clients involved in such transactions, according to an SEC complaint filed with the U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
The regulator said Casero used brokerage accounts opened in his parents' names to trade ahead of significant transactions at least 45 times from September 2020 until his May 2021 resignation, reaping nearly $472,000 of profit.
Wednesday's lawsuit does not identify Goldman by name, but identified Goldman clients in whose stocks Casero allegedly traded.
At least nine of Casero's trades related to mergers involving special purpose acquisition companies, the SEC said.
"We condemn this egregious behavior, which violates our standards of conduct and business principles," Goldman said in a statement. "We are fully cooperating with the SEC."
Casero did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A lawyer for him could not immediately be identified.
The SEC is also seeking an asset freeze against Casero and his parents, both of whom are "relief defendants." It said all three are Spanish citizens believed to have lived in Granada.
According to LinkedIn, Casero worked for UBS Group AG (SIX:UBSG) from Feb. 2018 to April 2019, before joining Goldman. He has not since worked at UBS, a person close to the matter said, though LinkedIn said he is "currently" employed there.