FoxNews.com
10/7/2011
George Soros, the billionaire financier and liberal activist, was dealt a legal blow this week when the European Court of Human Rights refused to overturn his nine-year-old criminal conviction for insider trading.
A French court convicted Soros in 2002 for insider trading in the late 1980s, but the Hungary-born investor appealed, arguing that the French law on insider trading at the time was too ambiguous to find him guilty.
But the European court ruled Thursday in a 4-3 decision that the French rules were clear enough to convict him.
The conviction is based on a 1988 investment Soros made in French bank Societe Generale. A French court found that Soros sold his shares for $2.9 million in profits after receiving insider knowledge about a plan hatched by a group of wealthy French businessman known as the “golden granddads” to force a takeover of the bank.
The takeover failed but resulted in a higher share price for Societe Generale. French prosecutors launched an investigation in 1990 that ultimately led to Soros’s conviction 12 years later and a $2.9 million fine that was reduced on appeal…
The article continues at FoxNews.com
Common American Journal welcomes readers from Before It’s News
