Sky Blog
I have argued that insider trading is morally harmless where the issuer approves the trade in advance and makes certain ex ante and ex post public disclosures.[1] I have also suggested that reforming the law to permit such issuer-licensed …
Our insider trading laws remind us of an old Churchill quote: It is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma.[1] Insider trading laws have never defined what constitute illegal insider trading information. Yet, the statutory penalties for …
Are securities law and their enforcement effective at mitigating market manipulation activities, especially insider trading activities? The study ‘Exchange Trading Rules, Surveillance and Suspected Insider Trading’, forthcoming in the Journal of Corporate Finance, tries to answer this question with …
In recent years, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) have zealously pursued potential insider trading. After a long string of high-profile successes, the government faces significant roadblocks created last year by the Second Circuit …
In a recent paper, I compare the legal treatment of outsider trading under US and EU law. Outsider trading can be defined as the sale or purchase of listed securities on the basis of material nonpublic information by individuals …
In United States v. Newman, 773 F.3d 438 (2nd Cir. 2014), the Second Circuit overturned the insider trading convictions of two hedge fund managers who received material nonpublic information from public companies via an extended tipping chain. The …
This column will focus on two new and unrelated developments linked only by the fact that they both emanate from California: (1) the Ninth Circuit has handed down a significant decision on insider trading—United States v. Salman[1]—that disagrees …
Despite losing several high-profile cases, the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission (SEC) has committed itself to prosecuting insider trading, outlawed by a patchwork of rule-making and court decisions. In recent years, the SEC has filed record-numbers of insider trading actions, …
After the Supreme Court’s unanimous decision in Carpenter v. United States,[1] the federal mail and wire fraud statutes became potent prosecutorial weapons against insider trading when the information-owner is the victim. This post examines how criminal liability under the …
A recent decision from the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York allowing a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) civil enforcement action to proceed against two former stockbrokers for alleged insider trading violations sheds additional …
If a party obtains information about a public firm before its initial public offering (IPO), and the party themselves is not an insider of the firm, should they be allowed to profit from the information after the IPO? We investigate …
Yesterday and today, we are running a number of posts related to the recent United States v. Newman decision in which the Second Circuit overturned the convictions for insider trading and conspiracy to commit insider trading of Todd Newman and …
In its recent decision in United States v. Newman,[1] the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit provided important guidance on the scope of insider trading liability. The case concerned the liability of two hedge fund …
The recent reversal of convictions of hedge fund managers Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson highlights the weakness of using a common law approach when interpreting Rule 10b-5 to reach remote tippees accused of insider trading. The decision reinforces the need …
If someone had asked me back in the mid-1980s whether an insider trading case required proof that the tippee was aware that the tipper was acting for personal gain, I would have said yes without much hesitation, because that’s what …
Among several independent holdings stated by the court on its way to reversing the convictions of Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson, the Newman court declared that: “in order to sustain a conviction for insider trading [against a remote tippee], the …
Everyone can thank Preet Bharara for one thing. His swath of insider trading prosecutions is forcing amplification of the law, especially the criminal law of insider trading. That body of law has been underdeveloped and at times stagnant. The Second …
The Second Circuit, in U.S. v. Newman raises likely insurmountable burdens for prosecutors to pursue remote tippees. Newman causes even greater harm to the public interest in fair capital markets by making it impossible to pursue the true violator, the …
On February 21, United States District Court Judge Jed S. Rakoff, federal prosecutor Reed Brodsky, and defense attorney Gary Naftalis, came together to discuss the Gupta insider trading case with Columbia Law School students in a seminar called Corporations in …