WALL STREET

SEC settles with SAC Capital’s Cohen

Billionaire Steven A. Cohen has been in the crosshairs of federal prosecutors for nearly a decade. His hedge fund, SAC Capital, was once one of the most powerful on Wall Street, managing more than $15 billion for investors and producing stellar returns for years.

But prosecutors suspected that SAC’s success was too good to be true.

U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara in Manhattan once called Cohen’s hedge fund a “veritable magnet for market cheaters.” When, in 2013, SAC agreed to pay $1.2 billion to settle charges that it tolerated rampant insider trading, it was one of the highest-profile successes in the government’s aggressive push against insider trading.

Still, connecting Cohen, one of the richest people on the world, directly to those misdeeds has remained elusive. And on Friday, the Securities and Exchange Commission essentially conceded. The Wall Street watchdog settled its nearly three-year-old civil case against Cohen, who was accused of failing to properly supervise employees, with no financial penalty.

Instead, Cohen’s new firm, Point72, which manages his $10 billion personal fortune, must hire an independent consultant to make sure it complies with securities laws. Once at risk of being banned from the industry for life, Cohen can begin managing others’ money again in 2018, under the agreement.

“Inevitably, some will ask why I agreed to settle,” Cohen said in a letter to Point72 employees obtained by The Washington Post. “The longer the pending litigation lingered, the more it distracted from the world-class Firm that we are building.”

— Renae Merle

RETAIL

Mobile shopping jumped over holidays

As expected, numbers out Friday from research firm ComScore confirmed that mobile shopping, which includes buying from smartphones and tablets, jumped in November and December, spurring on holiday retail sales this year.

Online shoppers are increasingly comfortable with shopping on smartphones as screen sizes get larger and shopping apps get better.

“I believe that we’ve seen a paradigm shift in 2016 where the future of retail will increasingly be defined by consumers’ behavior on mobile,” said ComScore chairman emeritus Gian Fulgoni.

Total online spending during November and December rose 13 percent to $69.08 billion from $61.29 billion last year. Spending on desktops rose 6 percent to $56.43 billion, short of comScore’s expectations of an 8 percent rise to $58.3 billion.

But mobile commerce helped make up some of that shortfall. Shopping on smartphones and tablets jumped 59 percent to $12.65 billion, well above the 47 percent rise ComScore was expecting.

Mobile commerce accounted for 18 percent of total online spending, up from 13 percent last year.

— Associated Press

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