Prison sentence for Apollo/Cooper insider trading

A court in the US has sentenced a man to 20 months’ prison for insider trading related to Apollo Tyres’ attempted acquisition of Cooper Tire & Rubber in 2013. The US District Court in Boston gave Amit Kanodia the custodial sentence and, after finding him guilty of conspiracy and securities fraud last year, ordered him to pay a fine of US$200,000 and forfeit a further $252,500.

Kanodia is said to have gained information about the planned acquisition from his then-wife, who was Apollo’s chief legal officer. This information was shared by two friends, Iftikar Ahmed and Steven Watson, and he received kickbacks of at least $220,000 from Ahmed and $22,000 from Watson for this information. Ahmed is said to have made more than $1.1 million through insider trading. Watson, who made a profit of almost $170,000 through insider trading, later became a cooperating witness in the case against Kanodia. Ahmed left the USA for India in May 2015.