Private equity company Tavistock Group announced the retention of law firm Sidley Austin to conduct a compliance review, the same week that its billionaire founder pleaded guilty to U.S. insider trading charges.
Kenneth Polite Jr., the former head of the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) Criminal Division, will lead the review, according to a press release Tuesday. Polite left the DOJ in 2023 to join Sidley Austin as partner and co-lead of the firm’s white-collar government litigation and investigations practice.
“We look forward to working with Tavistock and its new senior management team in ensuring a strong culture of compliance across all of its companies,” said Polite in the release.
Tavistock was founded by Joseph Lewis, whose family trust controls a majority of the U.K. soccer club Tottenham Hotspur. Lewis was arrested in July for allegedly providing confidential information about publicly traded businesses that he learned from his or his subordinates’ roles on the boards of companies in which he invested.
On Wednesday, Lewis pleaded guilty to the DOJ’s charges of committing securities fraud and conspiring to commit securities fraud through insider trading. He faces a maximum of 45 years in prison.
In September, Tavistock overhauled its leadership team. Shehan Dissanayake was named chairman of Tavistock, Nick Beucher and Josh Levy as co-chief executive officers, and Ben Weaver as chief financial officer.
“We take compliance seriously and want to ensure our processes and procedures are appropriately tailored to our businesses and effectively employed,” stated Dissanayake.
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