Doug Cornelius on compliance for private equity real estate
For the first time in 13 years, the Cleveland Brown did not lose on their NFL opening weekend. Being the Browns, they didn’t win either. They had to compete without the help of Mychal Kendricks. The now former linebacker was cut by the Browns after charges of insider trading. The $1.2 million in insider trading … Read more »
In a startling announcement, the Department of Justice and the Securities and Exchange Commission filed charges against Congressman Christopher Collins from New York. There has long been controversy around lawmakers and their staff trading on information obtained during their government service. That resulted in the passage of the Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge (STOCK) Act … Read more »
I found the two recent cases of insider trading to be clear violations that should be easy to spot. Matthew Brunstrum worked at a company with specific restrictions on trading the company’s stock. Yao Li worked a different company, but one that also had restrictions on trading the company’s stock. In both cases, the two … Read more »
The Securities and Exchange Commission and the DOJ filed another case against an Equifax employee who figured out that the breach remediation plan was actually for Equifax and not a client. Sudhakar Reddy Bonthu, like Jun Ying in the earlier case, Bonthu was working on Project Sparta which was identified as a fast-breaking opportunity for … Read more »
Back a few years ago there was blue collar insider trading case. Some workers on a railroad noticed a lot of guys in suits walking around the rail yards. Their boss made some unusual requests about equipment. The two workers put to and two together and took a guess that the railroad was for sale. … Read more »
Just to revive any anger you have left from the 2008 financial crisis and its aftermath, a new academic paper found evidence of insider trading among corporate insiders at leading financial institutions during the Financial Crisis. That’s on top of other research that brokers leak information or front run trades. One research paper on political … Read more »
With the ground-shaking decision in Newman, insider trading law became a bit murky. Cases have been filling in the gaps left in its wake. The Mathew appellate Martoma decision helped fill in some more. From a compliance perspective, this is all chasing butterflies and tilting at windmills. It was clear that Mr. Martoma was involved … Read more »
The case against Fei Yan was a fairly straight-forward insider trading case involving leaky M&A transactions. In this case, the leaks came from a junior corporate associate working on the transactions. We can only guess that she told her husband, Mr. Yan, about her day at work and revealed too much information. While Mr. Yan … Read more »
The quest of any insider trader is to get a stock bet in place before a big announcement is made. Robert W. Murray thought he could just make his own announcement and sell out of his trade. The target was Fitbit. This case caught my attention because of the yelling about “fake news” and Fitbit. I … Read more »
The SEC and the DOJ broght charges against Walter C. Little and his neighbor Andrew M. Berke for illegal insider trading. This particular case caught my attention because Mr. Little was a law firm partner and he found the information by searching through his law firm’s document management system. According to the complaints, Mr. Little … Read more »