Tag: insider trading

SEC Charges Chilean Citizens With Insider Trading Concerning Tender Offer for Chilean

Katten Muchin Law Firm

The Securities and Exchange Commission recently filed suit in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging that defendants, Juan Cruz Bilbao Hormaeche and Thomas Andres Hurtado Rourke, both Chilean citizens, illegally traded on material non-public information that Abbott Laboratories was interested in purchasing CFR Pharmaceuticals, S.A., a pharmaceutical company headquartered in Chile.

According to the complaint, on March 10, 2014, CFR’s Board of Directors met to consider Abbott’s offer to purchase CFR; Bilbao, then a member of the board, participated by telephone. After the meeting, between March 12, 2014 and May 7, 2014, Bilbao allegedly directed his business associate, Hurtado, to place trades purchasing more than $14 million in American Depository Shares (ADSs) of CFR in a US brokerage account maintained in the name of a British Virgin Islands company for the benefit of Bilbao. The SEC further alleges that based on knowledge of confidential information, Hurtado purchased 35,000 ADSs of CFR for $707,710. On May 16, 2014, Abbott announced a definitive agreement to acquire CFR, and on September 23, 2014, Abbott completed the tender offer. According to the SEC, Bilbao tendered his ADSs to Abbott on or before September 23, 2014, and saw a profit of more than $10.1 million. The SEC further alleges Hurtado tendered his ADSs to Abbott for a profit of about $495,000.

The SEC sued defendants for illegally trading on insider information. The SEC alleges that the nexus to the United States is the initial purchase of the ADSs through US-based brokerage accounts. The SEC seeks an order freezing defendants’ assets, an order requiring defendants to repatriate funds obtained from the alleged illegal activities, a final judgment that defendants violated the securities laws, and an order directing defendants to disgorge any illegal gains and to pay civil penalties.

Complaint, SEC v. Hormaeche, No. 14-cv-10036-RJS (S.D.N.Y. Dec. 22, 2014).

ARTICLE BY

Emily Stern
Zachary D. Denver
OF
Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP

SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) Gives Insider Trader a $30,000 Slap On The Wrist

DrinkerBiddle

On April 23, 2014, the SEC agreed to settle insider trading charges against Chris Choi, a former accounting manager at Nvidia Corporation who allegedly set into motion a trading scheme that reaped nearly $16.5 million in illicit profits and avoided losses. Given the amount of the purported loss, the fact that Choi was the original “tipper,” and the fact that nearly every other member of the scheme has been indicted, the Choi settlement seems like nothing more than a slap on the wrist: a $30,000 penalty without admitting to the insider trading allegations. The Choi settlement also represents a notable departure from the SEC’s recent insider trading fines and penalties against “tippers.”

According to the SEC’s complaint, on at least three occasions during 2009 and 2010, Choi tipped material nonpublic information about Nvidia’s quarterly earnings to his friend Hyung Lim. SEC v. Choi, No. 14-cv-2879 (S.D.N.Y. Apr. 23, 2014). Lim passed the information along to Danny Kuo, a hedge fund manager at Whittier Trust Company, who passed the information to his boss and to a group of managers at three other hedge funds.

Kuo and the other tippee-hedge fund managers used Choi’s information to trade in advance of Nvidia earnings announcements and reaped trading gains and/or avoided losses of approximately $16.5 million.

The SEC alleged that Choi was liable for this trading because he “indirectly caused trades in Nvidia securities that were executed” by the hedge funds and “did so with the expectation of receiving a benefit and/or to confer a financial benefit on Lim.” The SEC charged him with violations of Section 10(b) of the Exchange Act (and Rule 10b-5) and Section 17(a) of the Securities Act.

Choi, without admitting or denying the SEC’s allegations, agreed to settle the matter and to the entry of an order: (1) permanently enjoining him from violations of Section 10(b), Rule 10b-5, and Section 17(a); (2) barring him from serving as an officer or director of certain issuers of securities for five years; and (3) ordering him to pay a $30,000 penalty.

Not only is Choi’s settlement a significant departure from the resolutions obtained by his “downstream” tippees, a number of whom were convicted on criminal charges of insider trading, it is a departure from recent SEC “tipper” settlements. For example:

  • A former executive at a Silicon Valley technology company, who allegedly tipped convicted hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam with nonpublic information that allowed the Galleon hedge fund to make nearly $1 million profit, agreed to pay more than $1.75m to settle the SEC’s insider trading charges. See SEC Charges Silicon Valley Executive for Role in Galleon Insider Trading Scheme.
  • A physician who served as the chairman of the safety monitoring committee overseeing a clinical trial for an Alzheimer’s drug being jointly developed by two pharmaceutical companies, who allegedly tipped a hedge fund manager with safety data and eventually data about negative results in the trial approximately two weeks before they became public, which allowed the hedge fund to make nearly $276 million in gains, agreed to pay more than $234,000 in disgorgement and prejudgment interest to settle the SEC’s insider trading charges. The physician’s penalty may have been mitigated by the fact that he cooperated with and received a non-prosecution agreement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office in a parallel criminal action. See SEC Charges Hedge Fund Firm CR Intrinsic and Two Others in $276 Million Insider Trading Scheme Involving Alzheimer’s Drug.
  • A former executive director of business development at a pharmaceutical company located in New Jersey, who allegedly tipped a hedge fund manager (a friend and former business school classmate) with material nonpublic information regarding the company’s anticipated acquisition that allowed the manager to make nearly $14 million in gains, escaped criminal prosecution and agreed to pay a $50,000 penalty to settle the SEC’s insider trading charges. See SEC Charges Pharmaceutical Company Insider and Former Hedge Fund Manager for Insider Trading, Resulting in Approximately $14 Million in Profits.

There are a few reasons the SEC may have settled with Choi for such a small civil penalty. First, the SEC recently settled with Lim, the second chain in the insider trading scheme. Lim tentatively agreed to disgorgement or to pay a penalty once he has completed his cooperation with the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York and has been sentenced in its pending, parallel criminal action¾ i.e., United States v. Lim, 12-cr-121 (S.D.N.Y.). It also could be Choi’s limited financial means. We likely will never know the reason for the SEC’s agreed-upon resolution, but the fact of the resolution may have some value to other defendants.

Article By:

William L. Carr
Kevin A. Wisniewski
Of:
Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP

 

Let the Light of Day Shine Re: SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) Insider Trading Case

Barnes Burgandy Logo

We want to spend a moment talking about an old subject—the Securities and Exchange Commission’s insider trading case against Mark Cuban—and Cuban’s new business venture that has resulted from that case. The case, the SEC’s handling of the matter, and Cuban’s reactions (then and now) say a lot about how “the G” does business and may even be revelatory in the future.

As you recall, the SEC charged Cuban with insider trading in 2008. The case was originally dismissed by the trial court. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reinstated the case, concluding that the inquiry into whether Cuban had, in fact, traded on the basis of material, non-public information was simply too fact-intensive for the trial court to have decided without a full factual inquiry.

This, of course, is the problem with fraud-based government enforcement: the question of a person’s intent is difficult to determine without an expensive factual inquiry—and the costs of such an inquiry (combined with the potential consequences) are so high that many people settle with the G rather than seek to exonerate themselves. Historically, the SEC “extorted” settlements (not our view, necessarily, see Al’s Emporium Commentary in the Wall Street Journal Online Edition as of October 19, 2010) in reliance on this heavy burden. At the heart of the SEC’s effort was the “no admit or deny” settlement.

In these settlements, the SEC would recite each allegation of wrongdoing against a defendant as well as the terms under which the defendant had settled the charges. The defendant would neither admit nor deny the SEC’s allegations. Since Mary Jo White took over at the helm of the SEC in April 2013, she purportedly has set a new course, requiring that defendants must admit wrongdoing in more and more settlements—whether or not that changes the seemingly extortive nature of these cases remains to be seen.

But Cuban, with his seemingly unlimited resources and non-retiring personality, would not be extorted. He fought back, all the way through trial, and won. Ultimately, a jury of Cuban’s peers concluded (among other things) that the SEC had not proven that Cuban received confidential information, that he traded on such information, or that he had acted knowingly or recklessly (with “fraudulent intent”) when trading. (See the Associated Press’ “Big Story” on October 16, 2013, which has a digital recreation of the jury verdict form).

When he walked out of the courtroom, Cuban went ballistic on the SEC. See his comments on YouTube – his specific comments about the SEC are found beginning about the 50th second of the clip.

“When you put someone on the stand and accuse them of being a liar, it is personal,” he said, criticizing specific members of the SEC’s staff and, generally, the SEC’s enforcement practices. Since then, Cuban has reinforced his criticism, stating: “There’s such a revolving door, and [the SEC] was run by attorneys with an attorney’s mind-set looking for their next job. It’s a résumé builder,” [Cuban] said. “No wonder they say or do whatever they damn well please. I’m like, ‘OK, I’m going to start calling them out by name.” (WSJ’s Law Blog)

Cuban isn’t stopping with these castigatory remarks. He is putting his money where his mouth is. Cuban’s latest business venture is to publicize SEC trial transcripts (which are not generally publicly available). Cuban hopes that, by publicizing trial tactics and tactics he believes are problematic, he will change the way this agency of the G does business.

Article by:

Vincent P. (Trace) Schmeltz III

Of:

Barnes & Thornburg LLP

After Gupta’s Insider-Trading Conviction, What’s Next?

An article by David Deitch of Ifrah Law, After Gupta’s Insider-Trading Conviction, What’s Next?, published in The National Law Review:

Yet another shoe has dropped in the long-running investigation and the series of prosecutions arising from allegations of insider trading in the stocks of Goldman Sachs and other companies. In May 2011, Raj Rajaratnam was convicted of insider trading and ultimately sentenced to 11 years in prison. On June 15, 2012, Rajat Gupta, a former director at Goldman Sachs, was convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on four of six counts of an indictment that charged him with a conspiracy that included feeding inside tips to Rajaratnam in September and October 2008 about developments at Goldman Sachs.

As with the trial of Rajaratnam, the key pieces of evidence against Gupta appear to have been wiretapped conversations. The four charges on which Gupta was convicted all related to trades in support of which the government presented recorded conversations as evidence (though the government played only three recordings in the Gupta trial). The jury acquitted Gupta of two charges arising from other trades for which the government presented no such evidence. The jury clearly was influenced by hearing Rajaratnam on the recordings referring to his source on the Goldman Sachs board – powerful evidence that gave increased persuasive power to the government’s reliance on phone records showing substantial contacts between the two men.

Rajaratnam has appealed his conviction to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, and one significant issue he has raised is whether the government improperly sought authority to wiretap the conversations that were the cornerstone of his conviction. That ruling will be very significant, both because a decision in Rajaratnam’s favor is likely to result in a reversal of Gupta’s conviction as well, and because the Second Circuit’s ruling may have a major impact on the future ability of prosecutors to continue to use wiretaps against white-collar targets.

While Gupta is likely to receive a prison sentence for his conviction, it seems likely that he will receive a lower sentence that Rajaratnam, who engaged in the trades in question and reaped the benefits of those trades – estimated at trial to have generated $16 million in gains or in avoided losses from Rajaratnam’s fund. While prosecutors may seek a higher sentence based on acquitted conduct, Gupta’s advisory range calculated under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines may be as much as eight years in prison. There is also a significant question whether Judge Jed Rakoff, who has expressed frustration with what he calls “the guidelines’ fetish with abstract arithmetic,” will sentence Gupta to a shorter term than the one calculated under the Guidelines.

© 2012 Ifrah PLLC