The lengthy insider trading case against former Amaya head David Baazov came to an abrupt end when a Quebec judge threw out the case due to a prosecutorial error.
Judge Salvatore Mascia granted the defense’s motion to stay proceedings after the defense claimed prosecutors had inadvertently given them about 320,000 privileged documents they shouldn’t have seen.
The prosecution reportedly wanted the documents back. They were among tens of millions of pieces of information involved in the case which was one of the largest insider fraud cases in Canadian history.
Quebec’s securities regulator, l’Autorite des marches financiers had charged Baazov and several associates with insider-related counts in 2016 relating to Amaya group’s—now known as the Stars Group—$4.9 billion acquisition of the PokerStars online gaming platform in 2014.
“We are obviously very disappointed with the judge’s decision,” the regulator said in a press statement. “We are going to analyze the judgment very closely as well as assessing the pertinence of filing an appeal.”
Baazov had pleaded not guilty to five counts, including influencing or attempting to influence the market price of Amaya’s securities. Two other people, Yoel Altman and Benjamin Ahdoot, and three companies faced 18 additional charges stemming from the regulator’s investigation and had also pleaded not guilty, according to Canada’s National Post.
The motion was the third time Baazov’s lawyers had moved to have the case dismissed. Mascia rejected a defense motion in January to have the charges dismissed because delays in getting the case tried and also rejected a defense request over claims that the prosecution wasn’t disclosing evidence in a timely fashion.
In this motion, defense attorneys argued that the release of the privileged documents, which the prosecutors wanted back, meant Baazov would not get a fair trial.
The judge agreed.
“When the circumstances justify it, the courts must stay the proceedings. This is only to be used in the most dramatic cases. There must be no other acceptable solution that might right the wrongs,” said Mascia. “In this case, do the accumulation of mistakes require a stay of proceedings? Yes.”
