An unusual jump in the purchases of 3Com Corp. options just four hours before Hewlett-Packard Co.’s bid for 3Com became public has led to an SEC investigation, Bloomberg reports. More than 8,000 3Com calls were purchased on Nov. 11, 17 times the four-week average.
“It screams insider trading to the SEC,” Peter Henning, a law professor at Wayne State University, told Bloomberg. SEC spokesman John Nester declined to comment.
