Judges have concluded that is has not been proven that Peter Boone intended to influence the price of Portuguese bonds through his opinion articles on a blog associated with the New York Times.
Peter Boone was accused of market manipulation and pocketing a profit of €800,000 by trading in Portuguese debt. The investigating judge has now closed the case, considering that Boon had no intention of manipulating bond prices and making money.
This case dates back to events in 2010 following the first application for financial assistance by Greece which asked for a €30 billion bail-out.
An article in The New York Times blog "The next global problem: Portugal" was signed off by Peter Boone and Simon Johnson, who pointed to Portugal as the next country likely to collapse into bankruptcy.
On the date of publication of the article in Economix.com the The New York Times blog, the interest rate Portuguese public debt was 4.4%. The following week it had risen to 5%.
Portugal’s Commission for the Securities Market (CMVM) was tracking price movements and eventually made a complaint to the Department of Investigation and Penal Action (DIAP) in Lisbon as it suspected market manipulation.
Five years later, Peter Boone, a well-known consultant and Harvard PhD was accused by the Portuguese prosecutors of manipulating Portuguese public debt for a personal gain of €819,000.