Tech specialist at U.S. law firm charged with insider trading

By Nate Raymond and Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) - An information technology employee at a major U.S. law firm was arrested on Tuesday on charges that he engaged in an insider trading scheme that enabled him to earn nearly $297,000.

Dmitry Braverman, a former senior information systems engineer at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, was charged with one count of securities fraud in a criminal complaint filed in New York. He was arrested in San Mateo, California, early Tuesday morning, an FBI spokesman said.

While the complaint did not name the law firm, Wilson Sonsini was identified in a parallel civil lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Courtney Dorman, a spokeswoman for Wilson Sonsini, called the case "deeply disturbing to say the least," and said the firm was cooperating with the investigation.

"Client confidentiality is at the center of all we do and we have strict policies and internal controls established to protect it," Dorman said in a statement.

A lawyer for Braverman, 41, could not immediately be identified.

The case marked the latest in a string of insider trading prosecutions under Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara, whose office has secured convictions of 81 people since October 2009.

The complaint said that from 2010 to 2013, Braverman executed trades in stocks and call options in eight companies including Xyratex Ltd, Dealertrack Technologies Inc and Seagate Technology Plc based on non public information.

Those companies were the subject of various deals underway at Wilson Sonsini, a major corporate legal adviser in Silicon Valley.

According to the complaint, Braverman also tipped another person who engaged in two of the trades at issue. The SEC lawsuit said that person was his brother.

Both Braverman and his brother abruptly closed out the last of those trades in April 2011 on the same day another employee at Wilson Sonsini was arrested on separate insider trading charges, the complaint said.

That employee was Matthew Kluger, a former Wilson Sonsini associate who was sentenced in 2012 to a record 12 years in prison for insider trading.

After Kluger's arrest, Wilson Sonsini's general counsel emailed employees to reiterate the firm's policies on confidentiality and insider trading, according to charging documents.

The complaint said that in November 2012, however, Braverman opened a new brokerage account and began trading in inside information he obtained from Wilson Sonini, engaging in at least four more illegal trades.

The cases in the U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, are U.S. v. Braverman, No. 14-mj-2031, and SEC v. Braverman, 14-7482.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in New York; Editing by Peter Galloway)