Gerson controls two-thirds of the market for expert networks, which set up meetings and calls with current and former managers from hundreds of companies for hedge-fund and other traders seeking an investing edge, according to Integrity Research Associates, a New York firm that tracks expert networks.
A spokesman for Marvell, a Santa Clara, Calif., semiconductor company, declined to comment, as did representatives for the FBI and the Manhattan U.S. attorney's office.
The development is part of an insider-trading investigation examining the activities of expert-network firms, investment bankers, analysts, hedge-fund traders and mutual-fund traders. Last week, prosecutors charged an employee of Primary Global Research LLC, another expert-network firm, with providing inside information to a hedge-fund trader. A lawyer for that consultant, Don Ching Trang Chu, declined to comment. A spokesman for Primary Global, of Mountain View, Calif., declined to comment.
The FBI questioning of the Gerson consultant shows the government's examination of the expert-network business is broader than Primary Global. Criminal and civil authorities are investigating whether these consultants passed inside information to clients, who pay the expert companies large fees for their services.
Monday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder confirmed in a news conference that the U.S. is investigating trading on Wall Street, first reported by The Wall Street Journal on Nov. 19, though Mr. Holder declined to provide any details.
Gerson Lehrman In Probe
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