Lawyers at M&A firms among 30 charged in global insider trading case

Summary

• Federal prosecutors charged 30 people in a long-running insider trading operation tied to merger deals.
• Attorneys allegedly leaked confidential M&A information to traders for kickbacks and profits.
• The SEC filed a related civil enforcement action involving securities fraud allegations.
• Lawyers connected to major firms including Goodwin, Latham & Watkins and Wachtell were implicated

Federal prosecutors on Wednesday announced they charged 30 people with participating in an insider trading scheme in which attorneys passed tips on merger deals to a network of people who traded on the information.

Nineteen people were arrested, including attorney Nicolo Nourafchan, who federal prosecutors in Boston said was at the center of a decade-long scheme that generated tens of millions of dollars.

Nourafchan, who graduated from Yale Law School, worked from 2013 to 2023 at law firms including Sidley Austin, Latham & Watkins and Goodwin Procter. Those law firms were not identified by name in the indictment but it described corporate deals that the firms had previously announced they worked on.

Prosecutors and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which filed a related civil case, said Nourafchan and New York personal injury attorney Robert Yadgarov orchestrated the alleged scheme, which involved nearly 30 M&A deals.

Prosecutors said Nourafchan and others accessed law firms’ confidential documents about unannounced pending mergers.

Nourafchan and Yadgarov then provided inside information to a network of traders and middlemen for kickbacks, authorities said.

‘Special access’

“The trading on unannounced financial news alleged here not only violated the securities laws, but it also took advantage of the special access and ethical duties that come with a law license,” U.S. Attorney Leah Foley said in a statement.

Nourafchan, who lives in Los Angeles, and the other defendants face charges including securities fraud. Two defendants are in Russia and Israel and are considered fugitives, prosecutors said.

Nine others pleaded guilty in cases dating to 2024 that were unsealed on Wednesday. They include Gabriel Gershowitz, who had worked at the law firms Weil, Gotshal & Manges; DLA Piper and Willkie Farr & Gallagher, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Authorities said Gershowitz attended college with Nourafchan and Yadgarov, and beginning in 2019, supplied them non-public information from his employers. He pleaded guilty in February 2025.

Eric Rosen, a lawyer for Nourafchan, and E. Scott Morvillo, Gershowitz’s attorney, declined to comment. A lawyer for Yadgarov could not be immediately identified.

Prosecutors described the law firms in the case as victims. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz confirmed that a former lawyer was allegedly involved in the case. It said it cooperated with prosecutors.

Latham & Watkins confirmed it too was a victim and said, “The conduct as alleged would reflect a serious violation of our robust policies and procedures.” Goodwin said it was “deeply disappointed” in what allegedly occurred.

Among the deals caught up in the scheme was Amazon.com Inc‘s proposal in 2022 to acquire iRobot, which the companies later abandoned in the face of antitrust regulator opposition

At the time, Nourafchan was employed by Goodwin Procter, which advised iRobot. According to the indictment, he viewed confidential materials about the deal on the law firm’s document management system while “on leave” from the firm.