insider trading
SEC Announces Enforcement Results for 2016
The Securities and Exchange Commission announced on October 11 that, in fiscal year 2016, it filed 868 enforcement actions exposing financial reporting-related misconduct by companies and their executives and misconduct by registrants and gatekeepers, as the agency continued to enhance …
After Salman, Whither Outsiders and Facebook Friends in Insider Trading?
Oral argument in the insider trading case, Salman v. United States, prompted dozens of questions related to the key issue before the U.S Supreme Court: whether an investment banker personally benefitted directly or indirectly when he disclosed to his brother …
Supreme Court Hears Salman Insider Trading Case
The U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments today — transcript here — in U.S. v. Salman, the first insider trading case to land before the justices in almost 20 years. The issue: What counts as the “personal benefit” to the …
Insider Trading: Time for Supreme Court to Ditch Personal Benefit Test
The U.S. Supreme Court has a number of options when it considers its first insider trading case in almost 20 years. The case is Salman v. United States, and oral argument will be held on October 5. The facts …
Are Activist Investors Good for Targeted Companies?
In recent years, activist investors and the companies they target have attracted considerable attention—in the press, in the business and legal communities, in the political arena, and in academia. The fundamental question under debate is whether activist interventions create or …
Insider Trading Penalties: An International Study
Insider trading is a serious form of misconduct and can result in defendants receiving lengthy prison sentences and significant monetary sanctions. Our working paper, ‘Sanctions Imposed for Insider Trading in Australia, Canada (Ontario), Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, the …
PwC discusses the SEC’s Reporting and Public Dissemination Rule: Five Key Points
On July 13, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) adopted a final rule related to the reporting and public dissemination of security-based swap (SBS) transaction information. The rule builds on an earlier reporting rule for security-based swap dealers (SBSDs) finalized …
Shearman & Sterling’s 2016 Mid-Year Review of Securities Enforcement
Executive Summary[1]
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC or Commission) brought over 400 enforcement actions in the first half of fiscal year (FY) 2016, and is on pace to surpass its record of 807 enforcement actions in a single …
Did Regulation FD Prevent Selective Disclosure?
The Securities and Exchange Commission proposed Regulation Fair Disclosure (Reg FD) on December 20, 1999. The motivation behind the proposal was concern that an informational advantage provided by selective disclosures to certain market participants was resulting in a loss of …
Salman v. United States and Insider Tipping: What Could be Decided?
SEC Needs to Rewrite its 10b5-1 Safe Harbor Rules
While it is illegal for insiders to trade on material, non-public information, the SEC has created a safe harbor Rule 10b5-1 since October 2000, by allowing insiders to set up trading plans in advance of actual trading.[1] Since these …
Information-Dissemination Law: The Regulation of How Market-Moving Information Is Revealed
Corporate information that moves stock-market prices has long sat at the center of modern securities regulation in the United States. The Great Depression-era securities laws at the foundation of the field require much mandatory disclosure of this type of information. …
A Rule of Construction for Salman
The Supreme Court decided to consider the meaning of the personal benefit requirement in an insider trading case based on a tipping violation. It accepted review of the Ninth Circuit’s decision in United States v. Salman,[1] which reached …
Dark Side of Equity Gifts by Corporate Executives
They say that one should not look a gift horse in the mouth. We decided to go against this proverb and look carefully in the mouth of one such gift horse. After all, we still remember from high school reading …
Solving The Paradox of Insider Trading Compliance for Issuers
Regulators demand the impossible when they require issuers to design and implement an effective compliance program to guard against insider trading, a crime that neither Congress nor the SEC has defined with any specificity. This problem is then compounded by …
A Proposal to End Executive Manipulations of Incentive Compensation
Options backdating? Who would be so arrogant to be still backdating their options? It has been exactly ten years since the Wall Street Journal’s exposé on “lucky CEOs.”[1] The intriguing question though is whether the executives could resist temptation …
The Legality of Opportunistically Timing Public Company Disclosures in the Context of SEC Rule 10b5-1
Ever since the SEC adopted Rule 10b5-1in 2000 the rule has been the subject of controversy. Some have questioned its validity, others have claimed that it has been abused. The commentary that follows addresses one suspected abuse of Rule 10b5-1, …
Legal Expertise and Insider Trading
How does legal knowledge affect corporate insiders’ trading behavior? Do corporate insiders with law degrees trade differently from others? On the one hand, with a better understanding of regulations, legal insiders are more aware of the effects and risk of …
The Importance of “The Law of Conservation of Securities”: A Reply to John P. Anderson’s “What’s the Harm in Issuer-Licensed Insider Trading?”
Professor John P. Anderson’s article, What’s the Harm in Issuer-Licensed Insider Trading [1] argues that my “Law of Conservation of Securities” has no moral relevance to the question whether to allow such trading.
A stock market insider trade has two …