NEW YORK, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Pfizer ( PFE ) on Tuesday
appealed a federal judge's refusal to award the drugmaker $75.2
million from a more than decade-old insider trading settlement
involving billionaire Steven A. Cohen's former hedge fund, SAC
Capital Management.
The money was left over from SAC's $602 million settlement
in March 2013 with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
over trades in drugmakers Wyeth and Elan by Mathew Martoma, who
worked at an SAC unit and was later convicted.
Pfizer ( PFE ) said it deserved the $75.2 million because a
neurologist who tipped Martoma about a 2008 Alzheimer's drug
trial owed a fiduciary duty to Wyeth, which Pfizer ( PFE ) bought in
2009, because he had been a consultant there.
U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero in Manhattan, however,
ruled in November that Wyeth was not a victim of Martoma's
trading, and thus Pfizer ( PFE ) was not entitled to funds left over
after Wyeth and Elan investors who lost money were compensated.
Pfizer ( PFE ) appealed Marrero's decision to the 2nd U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals in Manhattan. The appeals process often takes
several months or longer.
Cohen was not criminally charged. He changed SAC Capital's
name to Point72 Asset Management in 2014, and is now worth $21.3
billion according to Forbes magazine.