Jury Finds Archegos Founder Bill Hwang Guilty of Fraud and Racketeering

A jury in federal court in Manhattan on Wednesday found the investor Bill Hwangguilty on charges arising from the collapse of Archegos Capital Management, which led to roughly $10 billion in losses for a handful of big Wall Street banks.

The 12-person jury deliberated for nearly two days after a two-month trial that featured testimony from 21 prosecution witnesses. Two key witnesses were former employees of Archegos, which Mr. Hwang had set up in 2013 as a giant family office that traded like a hedge fund but without much regulatory oversight.

In all, Mr. Hwang, 60, was charged with 11 counts of securities fraud, wire fraud, conspiracy, racketeering and market manipulation. The jury found him guilty on 10 of those charges and found him not guilty on one of the seven counts of market manipulation.

Mr. Hwang, who was seated and wearing a dark suit when the foreperson read the verdict, could spend the rest of his life in a federal prison.

Damian Williams, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, whose office brought the case, was in the courtroom for the reading of the verdict.

The jury also convicted Patrick Halligan, the former chief financial officer of Archegos, on all three counts against him: conspiracy, securities fraud and wire fraud.