According to media reports and court filings, a hedge fund trader has pled guilty to buying and selling stocks based on tips about changes in UBS’s analyst stock ratings. The trader, Mark Lenowitz used inside information about planned ratings changes when he traded securities at hedge funds Chelsey Capital and Q Capital Investment Partners.

Lenowitz was among 13 people charged March 1st in separate insider trading indictments against employees at UBS, Morgan Stanley and Bear Stearns. As part of the

Lenowitz traded on information such as when he was tipped that UBS would lower its stock rating on Tenet Healthcare in Oct. 2002.

Commentary: According to the SEC, which sued 14 defendants in March, the alleged scheme stretched over five years, included hundreds of tips and produced more than $15 million in illegal profits.

Bringing reference to shades of the 80′s, Linda Thomsen, the SEC’s enforcement chief, described the trading scandal as “one of the most pervasive Wall Street insider trading cases since the days of Ivan Boesky and Dennis Levine.”