SEC charges seven in huge “Golden Goose” insider trading case

The SEC today announced that it has charged seven individuals, including several Wall Street professionals, and two companies involved in an insider trading ring.  The SEC alleges that Matthew Devlin, a former registered representative at Lehman Bros., traded on and tipped his clients and friends with confidential, nonpublic information about 13 impending corporate transactions.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Devlin got the inside information from his wife, a partner in the New York City office of an international public relations firm working on the deals. The SEC stated today that “because the inside information was valuable, some of the traders referred to Devlin and his wife as the ‘golden goose.'” Devlin was allegedly rewarded with cash and luxury items for providing inside information, including a widescreen TV, a leather jacket, and Porsche driving lessons.  The illegal trading allegedly produced more than $4.8 million in profits.

Related criminal charges by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York were unsealed today against some of the defendants named in the SEC’s complaint.

The trading at issue involved the following public companies: InVision Technologies, Inc.; Eon Labs, Inc.; Mylan, Inc.; Abgenix, Inc.; Aztar Corporation; Veritas, DGC, Inc.; Mercantile Bankshares Corporation; Alcan, Inc.; Ventana Medical Systems, Inc.; Pharmion Corporation; Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc.; Anheuser-Busch, Inc.; and Rohm and Haas Company. Each company was confidentially engaged in a significant transaction that involved a merger, tender offer, or stock repurchase.

Read the SEC’s press release

Read the SEC’s complaint