Ex-Moelis Banker Who Tipped Insider-Trading Ring Avoids US Jail

A former Moelis & Co. investment banker was spared US prison time for tipping off members of a global insider-trading ring.

Benjamin Taylor was sentenced Thursday in New York federal court after traveling voluntarily to the US to plead guilty to a single conspiracy count. Charged in 2018, Taylor has been living in France, which doesn’t extradite its citizens. He told US District Judge Denise Cote he had come to put the matter behind him.

Cote sentenced Taylor to no additional time in custody beyond the 57 days he spent in a Monaco jail while successfully fighting extradition to the US. The judge said that it appeared that Taylor “has worked to remake his life in a very positive way.”

Barred from working in the securities industry, Taylor in 2019 started a commodities consulting business focused on liquefied natural gas. As part of his plea deal, he also agreed to forfeit $1.2 million. He previously agreed to settle a parallel Securities and Exchange Commission case for $500,000.

Taylor, 42, and his former girlfriend, ex-Centerview Partners LLC banker Darina Windsor, were accused of passing inside information on 22 deals between 2012 and 2018 to a ring that spanned the US, UK, France, Switzerland, Greece, Israel and Hong Kong. The ring’s trading generated tens of millions of dollars in illicit profits.

Prosecutors claimed the Taylor and Windsor, who lived together in London and referred to each other as “Pops” and “Popsy” in emails, made more than $1 million from the scheme.

Windsor was offered a deferred prosecution agreement, which means charges against her will be dropped if she stays out of legal trouble and honors a promise to pay $100,000 to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Arrested in Monaco in 2018, Taylor was jailed there before a court rejected a US extradition request. He then relocated to France.

Taylor worked for Moelis in London when he was feeding information to the ring. At the time his indictment was unsealed, a spokesperson for the boutique investment bank said, “We are appalled that a former junior employee violated the core values that are most important to our firm. We have cooperated fully with law enforcement authorities since being made aware of the allegations.”

Former Swiss trader Marc Demane Debih, who was at the center of the ring and later admitted making $70 million from the scheme, reached a cooperation deal with US authorities. He helped convict several other members of the ring, including former Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker Bryan Cohen. Sentenced during the pandemic, Cohen was given one year of home confinement.

The case is US v. Taylor, 18-cr-184, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).