Grassley SEC request for data in its trading bag probe

NEW YORK - a top U.S. legislator asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to explain how the top financial regulator of the country managed monitoring of hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors industry heavyweight.

Senator Charles Grassley of Iowa, the Senior Republican of the Senate Judicial Committee, stepped up the pressure on the SEC Tuesday in a letter to Mary Schapiro, Chairman of the SEC.

Grassley, who has long criticized the SEC for not adequately protect savers mean American, examines the 20 made stock trades by 14 billion $ funds of Steven Cohen in the last decade. The Senator regards trades as potentially suspect.

Grassley earlier this year asked the financial industry regulatory authority, of Wall Street's self-regulatory organization, to talk about redirects of any group has received on the bag. BAG is one of the largest coverage of the World Fund and is known to have delivered very strong years of returns.

He now asked the SEC to tell him how the Agency handled the recommendations he received of FINRA.

In the letter, Grassley asks Schapiro said "how resolved SEC each of these references, how the number of references this period compares to similarly situated businesses (and) If a notice of wells was never written on SAC Capital related to one of these referrals or linked to any other matter." The SEC has until early June to respond.

With his probe, Grassley is round new focus on the hedge fund based in Stamford, Connecticut, long known for his statements to both both high figures that the Government is probing how hedge funds use experts from the industry to develop business ideas.

The company has faced scrutiny since two former employees of SAC Capital, Noah Freeman and Donald Longueuil, pleaded guilty earlier this year to insiders then that he worked for Cohen of the company.

The SEC has also recently settled a case with former analyst Jonathan Hollander bag of insiders.

Reuters has already reported that investigators federal investigation into allegations of illegal trade to the SAC Capital have been for almost four years. The SEC confirmed not generally or the deny the existence of an investigation.

The authorities claimed no faults committed by Cohen or bag.

Grassley is since long a thorny for the SEC since support fort on how he managed the charges of insider trading at Pequot Capital Management. Founder Pequot Art Samberg closed the firm in 2009 and a year later, he moved insiders with the sec allegations.