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There has long been disagreement within the SEC and by legal scholars about whether the agency has the authority to pursue these types of charges, said John Reed Stark, who worked for the SEC’s enforcement division for nearly 20 years and founded its former Office of Internet Enforcement. The defendants could argue that they are […]
It was just a year or so ago when the SEC learned first-hand what it’s like to experience a data breach. Like a cardiologist who suffers a heart attack and could uniquely empathize with patients, the SEC, after suffering the EDGAR data breach, could now uniquely empathize with the cybersecurity challenges faced by financial firms. When […]
Today I published an article on LinkedIn (what the heck, I thought I would try LinkedIn as a media outlet) entitled, “A New Era of SEC Enforcement: Policing ‘Outsider Trading.’” My article brings together, and updates, several of my prior Stark on IR postings concerning the SEC’s foray into so-called “outsider trading.” via My New […]
The elaborate scheme described by the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission last week, which involved breaking into computer servers to obtain confidential information about impending corporate announcements, certainly looks like a classic case of insider trading. The defendants are accused of making millions of dollars in profits by using information to trade […]
The DOJ and SEC both announced high-profile cases today against a large group of hackers and traders. The group allegedly carried out an outrageously brazen scheme that involved hacking more than 150,000 confidential press releases from newswires over a five year period in order to execute illegal trades. DOJ, SEC Charge Hackers with Massive ‘Outsider […]
But suppose instead, a thief, who does not work at Microsoft, breaks into Microsoft headquarters via a basement window at midnight, reads Microsoft’s CFO’s papers about an upcoming positive earnings announcement and then buys Microsoft stock before that announcement. Is the thief guilty of insider trading? Historically, the SEC did not charge the thief with […]