US President Donald Trump has pardoned Bahamas-based billionaire Joe Lewis, who pleaded guilty to insider trading in the US last year over disclosures relating to companies in which he held board seats, including Wagyu beef producer the Australian Agricultural Co.

Eighty-eight year old Mr Lewis last year pleaded guilty to insider trading, however a US Federal judge decided against a jail sentence, in part because of his age.

Joe Lewis

A White House official on Thursday said Mr Lewis had “requested a pardon so that he may receive medical treatment and visit his grandchildren and great-grandchildren in the United States,” the Financial Times reported.

The official said Mr Lewis, a UK citizen living in the Bahamas, admitted he made a terrible mistake, did not fight extradition in the case, and paid a US$5 million fine.”

Lewis was charged in New York in 2023 following an investigation in which he was found to have passed on information on company activity to personal assistants, a private pilot and an acquaintance. One of the episodes involved the Australian Agricultural Co’s operations in Australia, following devastating flooding across AA Co properties. Mr Lewis owns about 52pc of AA Co shares through his Tavistock Investments.

In 2019, he allegedly told his pilots and others about the financial losses that AA Co would incur as a result of flooding in Queensland and urged them to sell their investments in the company before the information was disclosed.

Prosecutors claimed the recipients of his information made more than half a million dollars by trading on the non-public information, to which Lewis had been privy through his board seats.

The move is the latest in a series of high-profile pardons by US president Donald Trump.

Click here to read Beef Central’s 2024 story about Joe Lewis’s guilty plea to insider trading charges.

Prosecutors at the time alleged that between 2013 and 2022, he abused his access to corporate board rooms and passed the insider information on to his contacts.

In court, Mr Lewis admitted he knew what he was doing was wrong.

“I am so embarrassed and I apologise to the court for my conduct,” he said.

• AA Co delivers its half-year financial results next Thursday.