Insider Trading

Ethics of Congressional Stock Ownership

Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 11:00 am

The Washington Post published a story using Congressman John Dinghell as an example of the ethics issues involved when you have an investor lawmaker: Dingells and GM illustrate limits of congressional conflict-of-interest rules. Kimberly Kindy and Robert E. O’Harrow Jr. use Congressman Dinghell because of his financial connection with General Motors. This connection was...
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Insider Trading Debates

Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 7:00 am

Insider trading is back in the news. The SEC has shown heightened interest in prosecuting these cases, evidenced by the high-profile arrest of Galleon hedge fund manager, Raj Rajaratnam, on civil and criminal charges. One thing to keep in mind is that insider trading is not defined in the federal securities laws. The SEC has...
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Insider Trading Enforcement

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009 at 7:00 am

Either the Securities and Exchange Commission has stepped up its enforcement of insider trading or it’s doing a better job of publicizing its enforcement. Earlier this week, the SEC announced its case against Raj Rajaratnam and his New York-based hedge fund advisory firm Galleon Management LP. On September 23, they charged Reza Saleh with insider trading...
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SEC Case Against Mark Cuban is Dismissed

Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 3:02 pm

The SEC alleged that Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was involved in insider trading when he sold shares in an Internet search engine company, Mamma.com Inc., after receiving confidential information about a private offering in 2004. The SEC said Cuban avoided a loss of $750,000 by selling his 600,000 shares, which represented a 6.3...
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SEC Implements New Compliance Program (On Itself)

Wednesday, May 27th, 2009 at 7:00 am

After the embarrassing news that two of its attorneys are accused of insider trading, the SEC has decided to strengthen its internal compliance program to guard against inappropriate employee securities trading. “It only makes sense that we have a world-class compliance program – just as we expect from those we regulate,” said Chairman Schapiro. “The...
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Insider Trading at the SEC

Monday, May 18th, 2009 at 7:00 am

A report from the SEC’s Inspector General has publicized that two attorneys at the Securities and Exchange Commission are under “active” criminal investigation by the FBI for trading stocks based on inside information. Bad news for an agency that is still under fire for missing the Madoff fraud. Besides the salacious news, there are some...
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Insider Trading on Credit Default Swaps

Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 2:17 pm

The Securities and Exchange Commission brought its first insider trading enforcement action involving credit default swaps. Renato Negrin, a former portfolio manager at hedge fund investment adviser Millennium Partners L.P., and Jon-Paul Rorech, a salesman at Deutsche Bank Securities Inc., are charged with insider trading in credit default swaps of VNU N.V., an international...
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Trading in Distressed Debt

Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 1:44 pm

Richard G. Mason, Steven A. Cohen, Ian Boczko, Sarah A. Lewis, and David Gruenstein of Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, have prepared a memorandum concerning the possession and use of information when buying and selling distressed debt (an abridged version of which was published in The New York Law Journal): Trading in Distressed Debt...
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Insider Trading by Congress

Thursday, January 29th, 2009 at 11:21 am

Apparently members of Congress and their staff can make trades using non-public information obtained through their official positions. House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise M. Slaughter, D-N.Y., and Brian Baird , D-Wash., are sponsoring what they call the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act (HR 682) that would prohibit Members of Congress and their staffers...
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What Is Insider Trading?

Friday, January 16th, 2009 at 10:06 am

The SEC.gov website has a blurb on Insider Trading.  They start off with legal insider trading, when officers, directors and employees buy and sell stock in their own companies. Corporate insiders are required to report their trades. Illegal insider trading “refers generally to buying or selling a security, in breach of a fiduciary duty or...
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