Call it the Chip Skowron effect.
The former FrontPoint hedge fund manager’s ties to a huge insider-trading scandal continue to plague his former firm.
The $4.5 billion Greenwich, Conn., firm was slapped with a lawsuit this month by investors of Human Genome Sciences, the company that Skowron allegedly profited from using confidential information.
Federal prosecutors have charged Yves Benhamou, a French doctor and former adviser to Human Genome, with leaking information to a portfolio manager later identified as Skowron, who was let go in December.
Although FrontPoint hasn’t been charged with wrongdoing, the scandal led the firm to close its $1.5 billion healthcare fund and return money to clients.
The lawsuit filed in federal court in Connecticut claims FrontPoint wrongfully earned $30 million at the expense of Human Genome shareholders by trading on the tips Benhamou passed to Skowron between late 2007 and early 2008.
This week FrontPoint agreed to halt distributions on any money remaining in the healthcare fund until March 2 to give the court time to review the case.
That means any investors who have yet to get their money back will have to wait until at least then.
It’s unclear how much money, if any, remains. Late November, FrontPoint said it had distributed 97 percent of the assets from the shuttered fund, which would leave about $45 million.
A FrontPoint spokesman called the lawsuit a “rehash of the allegations” made by federal prosecutors and said the firm “continues to cooperate with the investigation.” kwhitehouse@nypost.com