Archegos' Bill Hwang deserves 21 years in prison, US says

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Bill Hwang, the founder of Archegos Capital Management, should spend 21 years in prison for running a market manipulation scheme that wiped out his $36 billion firm and cost its lenders more than $10 billion, federal prosecutors said on Friday.

In a late night court filing, prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan also asked that Hwang be subjected to a $12.35 billion forfeiture and to pay restitution to victims at his scheduled sentencing on Wednesday.

A 21-year term would be unusually long for a U.S. white-collar crime case, and just four years shorter than FTX cryptocurrency exchange founder Sam Bankman-Fried received in March after being convicted of stealing billions of dollars from customers.

Prosecutors called Hwang an "unrepentant recidivist" who appears to have "judged himself blameless."

They cited a 2012 guilty plea to wire fraud by Hwang's former hedge fund Tiger Asia Management, and a Nov. 8 request by Hwang's lawyers that their 60-year-old client spend no time in prison for his activities at Archegos.

"Bill Hwang used his personal hedge fund to commit a fraud that altered the American stock market and visited billions of dollars in losses on his trading counterparties," prosecutors said. "He pursued that fraud even after previously being ordered not to commit securities fraud. And even now he has no remorse."

A significant sentence, prosecutors added, would "signal to even the most hubristic investors that their grand schemes will be met with serious sentences."

Lawyers for Hwang did not immediately respond to requests for comment outside business hours.

Hwang was convicted in July on 10 criminal charges including securities and wire fraud and racketeering conspiracy.

Prosecutors accused him of lying to banks about Archegos' portfolio so he could borrow money aggressively and make concentrated bets on media and technology stocks such as ViacomCBS, through so-called total return swaps.

Hwang amassed $160 billion of exposure to stocks but could not meet margin calls as prices began falling.

This led to Archegos' demise in March 2021 and caused big losses for banks such as Credit Suisse, now part of UBS, and Nomura Holdings as various banks unloaded stocks backing Hwang's swaps.

Hwang did not testify at his two-month trial. He is expected to appeal his conviction.

In requesting that he serve no prison time, Hwang's lawyers said prosecutors did not and could not prove that Hwang's alleged lies caused losses for banks. They said Hwang's age, cardiovascular disease, philanthropy and low risk of recidivism also weighed against putting him behind bars.

Hwang's co-defendant, former Archegos Chief Financial Officer Patrick Halligan, was convicted at the same trial on three criminal charges. His sentencing is scheduled for Jan. 27.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by William Mallard)