While historically the SEC has prevailed in insider trading cases, it has lost several recent high profile cases. Join us for what should be a lively discussion.
Event Details
What is "insider trading" and what's so wrong with it? Insider trading is trading of a company's securities (such as stocks, bonds, or options) by a person with material non-public information about the company. Under certain circumstances, insider trading is illegal in the U.S. and many other countries; however, insider trading is not specifically defined under U.S. statutes. Instead, the prohibition against insider trading is enforced under Section 10b of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and related rules that prohibit the "employment of manipulative and deceptive devices." The law of insider trading is defined by judicial opinions construing Section 10b and related rules.
While historically the Securities and Exchange Commission has prevailed in insider trading cases, the SEC has lost several recent high profile cases on the subject. In the last year or so, there has also been a lot of press coverage on the subject, including the SEC's use of anomalous trading statistics to identify suspected insider trading activity and "Rule 10b5-1 Plans" set up by company insiders that permit trading even when in possession of insider information. Please join us for what should be a very lively discussion.
Pre-reading:
Introduction to Insider Trading, Mark J. Astarita
http://www.seclaw.com/docs/insidertrading033104.htm
InsiderTrading.org, U.S. Securities Insider Trading Information
http://insidertrading.org/
Questions
Elizabeth Bleakley
312-636-6684