A document processing specialist who spent more than three decades inside one of New York's most powerful law offices was arrested in Queens on Thursday morning, November 12, and charged in federal court in Brooklyn with insider trading — accused of quietly using confidential client deal information that crossed his desk to trade ahead of major mergers and acquisitions, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of New York.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York
The defendant is Chetram Balli, 54, also known as “Tony Balli,” of Hollis, Queens. A criminal complaint unsealed on Thursday in the Eastern District of New York charges him with insider trading in the shares of five companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. Balli was arrested on Thursday morning in Queens and was scheduled to appear on Thursday afternoon before United States Magistrate Judge Marcia M. Henry for his initial appearance and arraignment. The case carries docket number 26-MJ-204.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York
Bloomberg Law reported that the firm described in the complaint only as “Law Firm-1” is Cravath, Swaine & Moore, identified through a public LinkedIn profile under Balli's name, and NBC New York reported the same identification, adding that a Cravath spokesperson said the individual “was not a member of our legal staff” and “is no longer with the firm.” The Justice Department itself does not name the firm in its release. Those identifications are the news organisations' reporting, not a statement in the criminal complaint.
Source: Bloomberg Law
What prosecutors allege he did
As alleged in the complaint, Balli had worked since approximately 1989 as a Document Processing Specialist at the firm, supporting attorneys by creating and revising complex legal documents and preparing and submitting filings through the Securities and Exchange Commission's EDGAR system. Prosecutors say that work gave him access to material non-public information — known as MNPI — about upcoming partnerships, mergers and planned acquisitions involving the firm's clients, and that the firm's own policies prohibited him from trading on it.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York
The criminal complaint alleges that Balli made more than $70,000 in profit on trades between April 2025 and October 2026. In a parallel civil case filed the same day, the SEC alleges that between May 2025 and October 2026, despite his employer's prohibition, Balli traded on material non-public information on at least eight occasions and generated approximately $55,000 in ill-gotten profits. The SEC complaint, filed in the Eastern District of New York, charges him with violating Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5. The two figures come from two different cases — the criminal complaint and the SEC's civil complaint — and are reported here exactly as each agency stated them.
Source: SEC, as reported by FX News Group
The E2open trade, step by step
The complaint gives one trade in full detail. As alleged, on May 12, 2025, Balli purchased approximately 14,866 shares in E2open Parent Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: ETWO), a Texas-based provider of supply chain management software — a company in which, prosecutors say, he had not previously invested. Less than two weeks later, on May 25, 2025, WiseTech Global Limited, an Australian provider of software for the global trade, logistics and supply chain industries, announced it had agreed to acquire E2open in an all-cash transaction for $3.30 per share, an enterprise value of $2.1 billion and a 28 percent premium to E2open's previous closing price. Prosecutors say Law Firm-1 represented WiseTech in that acquisition. Balli, as alleged, sold his entire E2open position on May 27, 2025, the first trading day after the announcement.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York
Prosecutors allege a similar pattern in four more companies: Forge Global Holdings, Inc. (NYSE: FRGE), traded ahead of the November 2025 announcement of its acquisition by the Charles Schwab Corporation for $660 million; Paramount Skydance Corp. (NASDAQ: PSKY), ahead of the February 2026 announcement of its acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. for $110 billion; Talkspace, Inc. (NASDAQ: TALK), ahead of the March 2026 announcement of its acquisition by Universal Health Services, Inc. for $853 million; and Pacira BioSciences, Inc. (NYSE: PCRX), ahead of the October 2026 announcement of its acquisition by Viatris Inc. for $1.65 billion.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York
What the officials said
“As alleged, Balli repeatedly traded on inside information that he misappropriated from his employer and his employer's clients,” United States Attorney Joseph Nocella, Jr. said in the release. “Our Office is committed to protecting the integrity of the securities markets and investors who play by the rules. Corrupt individuals who might be tempted to take advantage of their access to confidential information should know that we are watching.” Nocella thanked the SEC and FINRA Regulatory Operations – Surveillance for their assistance in the investigation.
Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Eastern District of New York
James C. Barnacle, Jr., Assistant Director in Charge of the FBI's New York Field Office, said Balli “allegedly turned privileged access into an illegal advantage, repeatedly trading securities ahead of public announcements involving major corporate transactions,” and that by misappropriating confidential information for personal profit “he gained an unfair edge over law-abiding investors and compromised the fairness that our markets depend upon.” NBC New York reported that the FBI arrested Balli at his Hollis home on Thursday morning and that he appeared in Brooklyn federal court on Thursday.
Source: NBC New York, via EuropeSays
Background: why support-staff access is the risk in cases like this
Insider trading cases usually turn on a simple idea: information that would move a share price, that the public does not yet have, cannot lawfully be used to trade. In “misappropriation” cases, prosecutors allege that a person who received that information in confidence at work — a lawyer, a banker, or, as alleged here, a document specialist who handled the paperwork of the deals themselves — broke that duty and traded anyway. Modern law firms handle their biggest mergers through small deal teams, but the documents those deals produce pass through many hands: word-processing and document centres, filing staff who submit to EDGAR, and administrators. That is why firms impose blanket bans on staff trading in client securities, and why, prosecutors say, a decades-long support role can carry the same market-moving access as a partner's office — without the public profile that usually draws scrutiny.
For readers in Queens and across the New York area — including the large Punjabi and South Asian communities in neighbourhoods such as Hollis, Jamaica, Richmond Hill and Jackson Heights who work in the city's legal, financial and back-office industries — the case is a reminder that the compliance rules printed in an employee handbook apply to every desk in the building, not only to the attorneys whose names are on the door. It is also a reminder that regulators compare trading records against deal timelines as a matter of routine: the SEC and FINRA surveillance units thanked in this case are the offices that flag unusual trading ahead of an announcement.
The charges in the criminal complaint are allegations. Chetram Balli is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty. The Justice Department release contains no statement from Balli or from any lawyer for him, and none is reported in the coverage read for this report.
What happens next
The government's criminal case is being handled by the Eastern District's Business and Securities Fraud Section. Assistant United States Attorneys Jonathan P. Lax and Nick M. Axelrod are in charge of the prosecution, with assistance from Paralegal Specialist Melina Piatti-Chayan. If convicted of the charges in the complaint, Balli faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison. The next steps in a case of this kind are the initial appearance and arraignment already scheduled for Thursday afternoon, followed by the government's decision on presenting the case to a grand jury for an indictment, while the SEC's civil case proceeds in parallel in the same district. No plea, bail terms or trial date were announced in the releases read for this report.