Until 2010, Gottlieb's father had a desk within the firm's New York office and, on occasion, informally advised the company on accounting matters.
[2] Jacob Gottlieb's brother Mark worked at Visium in various roles, in a move regarded by Bloomberg News as a "potential conflict of interest".
Additionally, Bloomberg reported that portfolio manager Stefan Lumiere "was hired in 2007, two years after his sister Alexandra became engaged to [Jacob] Gottlieb.
"[2] Despite his public commitment to "the highest ethical conduct [for Visium employees]", Gottlieb directly owned 25,703 pre-IPO shares of Intercept Pharmaceuticals despite the company having 5.2% stake as well.
"[10] Thorell would cooperate with federal investigators who asked him to secretly record individuals at the firm including Gottlieb's brother-in-law Lumiere.
Separately, Plaford’s cooperation with the government led to a jury conviction of a research consultant, David Blaszczak, the founder of Precipio Health Strategies, for violating insider-trading rules by obtaining and relaying nonpublic information from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services about coming changes in health-care policy to Deerfield Management.
[16][17] Later, Steven Ku, Visium's former Chief Financial Officer, agreed to be barred from the securities industry for one year and pay $100,000 to settle the agency's allegations that he failed to supervise portfolio managers Christopher Plaford and Stefan Lumiere.
[18][19] In 2016, portfolio manager Sanjay Valvani and two others were charged with insider trading by federal prosecutor Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
[27] Two years after his sister's 2005 marriage to Gottlieb, Stefan Lumiere joined Visium, ultimately working under Chris Plaford in the firm's Credit Opportunities Fund which held assets consisting of distressed debt.