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Glen Point Capital co-founder Neil Phillips should serve two years in prison for manipulating the US dollar-South African rand exchange rate, federal prosecutors argued in a court filing.
The 54-year-old former hedge fund executive was convicted of a single count of commodities fraud by a jury in October after a weeklong trial. Prosecutors had accused him of directing $725 million in trades on December 26, 2017, to raise the value of the rand against the dollar and trigger a payout on a $20 million option.
“A sentence of two years’ imprisonment, and a $1 million fine, are necessary to reflect the severity of the defendant’s crime and deter others from committing fraud through market manipulation,” prosecutors with the US Attorney’s Office in Manhattan said in a filing late Monday.
Phillips’ lawyers told the court last week that their client should serve no prison time, arguing that he had suffered enough after spending a month in jail under difficult circumstances and contending with litigation in a foreign country.
But prosecutors say a sentence with no prison time would “not be commensurate with the planning involved in the offense, Phillips’ high-ranking role at Glen Point, and the amount his firm reaped from the fraud.”
“It would also send the wrong message to the industry that fraud committed through trading is a lesser offence than any other form of fraud,” they told the court.
Federal sentencing guidelines suggest a much stiffer sentence of 78 to 97 months in prison, prosecutors said in their sentencing memo.
