The Securities and Exchange Commission decided to emphasize that working wives can be a source of material non-public information. The SEC press release highlighted insider trading cases brought against husbands who engaged in insider trading after learning confidential information from their wives.
The first case was against Tyrone Hawk. His wife worked at Oracle. Mr. Hawk overheard Mrs. Hawk talking about Oracle’s acquisition of Acme Packet. He decided to make a quick buck and bought shares in Acme Packet. His trade netted him $150,000 after the stock went up 23% on the takeover news.
The second case was against Ching Hwa Chen. His wife worked at Informatica. He overheard news from Mrs. Chen that the company was not going to make its quarterly earnings target. He decided to profit on the bad news by taking a short position on the stock. He made a quick $140,000 in profit.
To emphasize the point, the press release highlighted three older cases of husbands engaging in insider trading after misappropriating information from their spouses: James Balchan, M. Jason Hanold, and William A. Marovitz.
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