SEC CHARGES FUND MANAGER COOPERMAN WITH INSIDER TRADING
The top U.S. securities regulator on Wednesday charged billionaire investor Leon Cooperman with insider trading, making him the highest-profile target in years in Washington's ongoing crackdown on illegal trading at hedge funds. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said Cooperman's trades earned roughly $4 million when his fund Omega Advisors invested in Atlas Pipeline Partners six years ago, before it sold a gas processing facility. Cooperman was a big shareholder in the company and used his position to obtain confidential information about the sale that other investors did not know about, the agency said in its civil case.