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Rules against insider trading on material non-public information exist in most jurisdictions around the world (Bhattacharya and Daouk, 2002), but the details and the efforts to enforce them vary considerably. In the United States, Sections 16(b) and 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 directly and indirectly address insider trading. Congress enacted this act after the stock market crash of 1929.[3] The United States is generally viewed as having the strictest laws against illegal insider trading, and makes the most serious efforts to enforce them.[4] In the United Kingdom, the Financial Services and Markets Act, 2000 gives the UK's Financial Services Authority the responsibility to investigate and prosecute insider dealing, defined by The Criminal Justice Act 1993. Definition of "insider" In the United States and Germany, for mandatory reporting purposes, corporate insiders are defined as a company's officers, directors and any beneficial owners of more than 10% of a class of the company's equity securities. Trades made by these types of insiders in the company's own stock, based on material non-public information, are considered fraudulent since the insiders are violating the fiduciary duty that they owe to the shareholders. The corporate insider, simply by accepting employment, has undertaken a legal obligation to the shareholders to put the shareholders' interests before their own, in matters related to the corporation. When the insider buys or sells based upon company owned information, he is violating his obligation to the shareholders. For example, illegal insider trading would occur if the chief executive officer of Company A learned (prior to a public announcement) that Company A will be taken over and then bought shares in Company A while knowing that the share price would likely rise. In the United States and many other jurisdictions, however, "insiders" are not just limited to corporate officials and major shareholders where illegal insider trading is concerned but can include any individual who trades shares based on material non-public information in violation of some duty of trust. This duty may be imputed; for example, in many jurisdictions, in cases of where a corporate insider "tips" a friend about non-public information likely to have an effect on the company's share price, the duty the corporate insider owes the company is now imputed to the friend and the friend violates a duty to the company if the corporate insider trades on the basis of this information. Liability for insider trading Liability for inside trading violations cannot be avoided by passing on the information in an "I scratch your back; you scratch mine" or quid pro quo arrangement as long as the person receiving the information knew or should have known that the information was material non-public information. When allegations of a potential inside deal occur, all parties that may have been involved are at risk of being found guilty. For example, if Company A's CEO did not trade on the undisclosed takeover news, but instead passed the information on to his brother-in-law who traded on it, illegal insider trading would still have occurred (albeit by proxy by passing it on to a "non-insider" so Company A's CEO wouldn't get his hands dirty).[5]:589 Misappropriation theory A newer view of insider trading, the misappropriation theory, is now accepted in U.S. law. It states that anyone who misappropriates (steals) information from their employer and trades on that information in any stock (either the employer's stock or the company's competitor stocks) is guilty of insider trading. For example, if a journalist who worked for Company B learned about the takeover of Company A while performing his work duties and bought stock in Company A, illegal insider trading might still have occurred. Even though the journalist did not violate a fiduciary duty to Company A's shareholders, he might have violated a fiduciary duty to Company B's shareholders (assuming the newspaper had a policy of not allowing reporters to trade on stories they were covering).[5]:586–7 Proof of responsibility Proving that someone has been responsible for a trade can be difficult because traders may try to hide behind nominees, offshore companies, and other proxies. Nevertheless, the Securities and Exchange Commission prosecutes over 50 cases each year, with many being settled administratively out of court. The SEC and several stock exchanges actively monitor trading, looking for suspicious activity.[6][7][8] The SEC does not have criminal enforcement authority, but can refer serious matters to the U.S. Attorney's Office for further investigation and prosecution. Trading on information in general Not all trading on information is illegal insider trading, however. For example, a person in a restaurant who hears the CEO of Company A at the next table tell the CFO that the company's profits will be higher than expected and then buys the stock is not guilty of insider trading—unless they had some closer connection to the company or company officers. However, information about a tender offer (usually regarding a merger or acquisition) is held to a higher standard. If this type of information is obtained (directly or indirectly) and there is reason to believe it is nonpublic, there is a duty to disclose it or abstain from trading.[9] The punishment for insider trading depends on a few different factors. There are three main factors, which can be identified. The significance of the trading – How much money was involved? How many people were affected by your wrongdoing? Evidence – Anyone charged is innocent until proven guilty. The burden of proof falls on the prosecution. If no one “flips,” or if there isn’t a smoking gun, the prosecution has a harder time proving guilt. This may result in prosecution moving away from criminal charges, and instead choosing to pursue civil charges. SEC violations – If SEC regulations have been broken, the department of justice may be called in to conduct an independent parallel investigation. Once the DOJ is involved, they conduct a very thorough investigation. If the DOJ finds criminal wrongdoing, they file criminal charges, and suspects may end up in jail.[10] Tracking insider trades Since insiders are required to report their trades, others often track these traders, and there is a school of investing which follows the lead of insiders. This is, of course, subject to the risk that an insider is making a buy specifically to increase investor confidence or making a sell for reasons unrelated to the health of the company (such as a desire to diversify or pay a personal expense). Legal insider trading Legal trades by insiders are common,[3] as employees of publicly traded corporations often have stock or stock options. These trades are made public in the United States through Securities and Exchange Commission filings, mainly Form 4. SEC Rule 10b5-1 clarified that the prohibition against insider trading does not require proof that an insider actually used material nonpublic information when conducting a trade; possession of such information alone is sufficient to violate the provision, and the SEC would infer that an insider in possession of material nonpublic information used this information when conducting a trade. However, SEC Rule 10b5-1 also created for insiders an affirmative defense if the insider can demonstrate that the trades conducted on behalf of the insider were conducted as part of a pre-existing contract or written binding plan for trading in the future.[11] For example, if an insider expects to retire after a specific period of time and, as part of retirement planning, the insider has adopted a written binding plan to sell a specific amount of the company's stock every month for two years and later comes into possession of material nonpublic information about the company, trades based on the original plan might not constitute prohibited insider trading. American insider trading law The United States has been the leading country in prohibiting insider trading made on the basis of material non-public information. Thomas Newkirk and Melissa Robertson of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) summarize the development of US insider trading laws.[3] Insider trading has a base offense level of 8, which puts it in Zone A under the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines. This means that first-time offenders are eligible to receive probation rather than incarceration.[12] Statutory law US insider trading prohibitions are based on English and American common law prohibitions against fraud. In 1909, well before the Securities Exchange Act was passed, the United States Supreme Court ruled that a corporate director, who bought that company's stock when he knew it was about to jump up in price, committed fraud by buying but not disclosing his inside information. Section 15 of the Securities Act of 1933[13] contained prohibitions of fraud in the sale of securities which were greatly strengthened by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.[14] Section 16(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 prohibits short-swing profits (from any purchases and sales within any six-month period) made by corporate directors, officers, or stockholders owning more than 10% of a firm's shares. Under Section 10(b) of the 1934 Act, SEC Rule 10b-5, prohibits fraud related to securities trading. The Insider Trading Sanctions Act of 1984 and the Insider Trading and Securities Fraud Enforcement Act of 1988 place penalties for illegal insider trading as high as three times profit gained or loss avoided from the illegal trading.[15] SEC regulations SEC regulation FD ("Fair Disclosure") requires that if a company intentionally discloses material non-public information to one person, it must simultaneously disclose that information to the public at large. In the case of an unintentional disclosure of material non-public information to one person, the company must make a public disclosure "promptly."[5]:586 Insider trading, or similar practices, are also regulated by the SEC under its rules on takeovers and tender offers under the Williams Act. Court decisions Much of the development of insider trading law has resulted from court decisions. In SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co.,[16] a federal circuit court stated that anyone in possession of inside information must either disclose the information or refrain from trading.[2] Officers of the Texas Gulf Sulphur Corporation had used inside information about the discovery of the Kidd Mine to make profits by buying shares and call options on company stock.[17] In 1909, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in Strong v. Repide[18] that a director who expects to act in a way that affects the value of shares cannot use that knowledge to acquire shares from those who do not know of the expected action. Even though in general, ordinary relations between directors and shareholders in a business corporation are not of such a fiduciary nature as to make it the duty of a director to disclose to a shareholder the general knowledge which he may possess regarding the value of the shares of the company before he purchases any from a shareholder, yet there are cases where, by reason of the special facts, such duty exists. In 1984, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in the case of Dirks v. SEC[19] that tippees (receivers of second-hand information) are liable if they had reason to believe that the tipper had breached a fiduciary duty in disclosing confidential information and the tipper received any personal benefit from the disclosure. (Since Dirks disclosed the information to expose a fraud, rather than for personal gain, nobody was liable for insider trading violations in his case.) The Dirks case also defined the concept of "constructive insiders," who are lawyers, investment bankers and others who receive confidential information from a corporation while providing services to the corporation. Constructive insiders are also liable for insider trading violations if the corporation expects the information to remain confidential, since they acquire the fiduciary duties of the true insider. The next expansion of insider trading liability came in SEC vs. Materia[20] 745 F.2d 197 (2d Cir. 1984), the case which first introduced the misappropriation theory of liability for insider trading. Materia, a financial printing firm proofreader, and clearly not an insider by any definition, was found to have determined the identity of takeover targets based on proofreading tender offer documents during his employment. After a two week trial, the district court found him liable for insider trading, and the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed holding that the theft of information from an employer, and the use of that information to purchase or sell securities in another entity, constituted a fraud in connection with the purchase or sale of a securities. The misappropriation theory of insider trading was born, and liability further expanded to encompass a larger group of outsiders. In United States v. Carpenter[21] (1986) the US Supreme Court cited an earlier ruling while unanimously upholding mail and wire fraud convictions for a defendant who received his information from a journalist rather than from the company itself. The journalist R. Foster Winans was also convicted, on the grounds that he had misappropriated information belonging to his employer, the Wall Street Journal. In that widely publicized case, Winans traded in advance of "Heard on the Street" columns appearing in the Journal.[22] The court ruled in Carpenter: "It is well established, as a general proposition, that a person who acquires special knowledge or information by virtue of a confidential or fiduciary relationship with another is not free to exploit that knowledge or information for his own personal benefit but must account to his principal for any profits derived therefrom." However, in upholding the securities fraud (insider trading) convictions, the justices were evenly split. In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court adopted the misappropriation theory of insider trading in United States v. O'Hagan,[23] 521 U.S. 642, 655 (1997). O'Hagan was a partner in a law firm representing Grand Metropolitan, while it was considering a tender offer for Pillsbury Company. O'Hagan used this inside information by buying call options on Pillsbury stock, resulting in profits of over $4.3 million. O'Hagan claimed that neither he nor his firm owed a fiduciary duty to Pillsbury, so he did not commit fraud by purchasing Pillsbury options.[24] The Court rejected O'Hagan's arguments and upheld his conviction. The "misappropriation theory" holds that a person commits fraud "in connection with" a securities transaction and thereby violates 10(b) and Rule 10b-5, when he misappropriates confidential information for securities trading purposes, in breach of a duty owed to the source of the information. Under this theory, a fiduciary's undisclosed, self-serving use of a principal's information to purchase or sell securities, in breach of a duty of loyalty and confidentiality, defrauds the principal of the exclusive use of the information. In lieu of premising liability on a fiduciary relationship between company insider and purchaser or seller of the company's stock, the misappropriation theory premises liability on a fiduciary-turned-trader's deception of those who entrusted him with access to confidential information. The Court specifically recognized that a corporation's information is its property: "A company's confidential information... qualifies as property to which the company has a right of exclusive use. The undisclosed misappropriation of such information in violation of a fiduciary duty...constitutes fraud akin to embezzlement – the fraudulent appropriation to one's own use of the money or goods entrusted to one's care by another." In 2000, the SEC enacted SEC Rule 10b5-1, which defined trading "on the basis of" inside information as any time a person trades while aware of material nonpublic information. It is no longer a defense for one to say that one would have made the trade anyway. The rule also created an affirmative defense for pre-planned trades. Insider trading by members of Congress Members of the US Congress are not exempt from the laws that ban insider trading, but as they generally do not have a confidential relationship with the source of the information they receive, they do not meet the usual definition of an "insider."[25] House of Representatives rules[26] may however consider congressional insider trading unethical. A 2004 study found that stock sales and purchases by Senators outperformed the market by 12.3% per year.[citation needed] Peter Schweizer points out several examples of insider trading by members of Congress, including action taken by Spencer Bachus following a private, behind-the-doors meeting on the evening of September 18, 2008 when Hank Paulson and Ben Bernanke informed members of Congress about the imminent financial crisis, Bachus then shorted stocks the next morning and cashed in his profits within a week.[27] Also attending the same meeting were Senator Dick Durbin and John Boehner; the same day (trade effective the next day), Durbin sold mutual-fund shares worth $42,696, and reinvested it all with Warren Buffett. Also the same day (trade effective the next day), Congressman Boehner cashed out of an equity mutual fund.[28][29] Insider trading with Congress-sourced information In 2014, federal prosecutors issued a subpoena to the House Ways and Means committee and Brian Sutter, staff director of its health-care sub-committee, relative to a price move in stocks just prior to the passage of a law favorable to the companies involved. An e-mail was sent out by a "Washington-based policy-research firm that predicted the change [in the law] for its Wall Street clients. That alert, in turn, was based in part on information provided to the firm by a former congressional health-care aide turned lobbyist, according to emails reviewed by the [Wall Street] Journal in 2013.[30] Security analysis and insider trading Security analysts gather and compile information, talk to corporate officers and other insiders, and issue recommendations to traders. Thus their activities may easily cross legal lines if they are not especially careful. The CFA Institute in its code of ethics states that analysts should make every effort to make all reports available to all the broker's clients on a timely basis. Analysts should never report material nonpublic information, except in an effort to make that information available to the general public. Nevertheless, analysts' reports may contain a variety of information that is "pieced together" without violating insider trading laws, under the Mosaic theory.[31] This information may include non-material nonpublic information as well as material public information, which may increase in value when properly compiled and documented. In May 2007, a bill entitled the "Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge Act, or STOCK Act" was introduced that would hold congressional and federal employees liable for stock trades they made using information they gained through their jobs and also regulate analysts or "Political Intelligence" firms that research government activities.[32] The 2012 STOCK Act was passed on April 4th, 2012. Arguments for legalizing insider trading Some economists and legal scholars (such as Henry Manne, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, Daniel Fischel, and Frank H. Easterbrook) have argued that laws against insider trading should be repealed. They claim that insider trading based on material nonpublic information benefits investors, in general, by more quickly introducing new information into the market.[33] Friedman, laureate of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics, said: "You want more insider trading, not less. You want to give the people most likely to have knowledge about deficiencies of the company an incentive to make the public aware of that." Friedman did not believe that the trader should be required to make his trade known to the public, because the buying or selling pressure itself is information for the market.[5]:591–7 Other critics argue that insider trading is a victimless act: a willing buyer and a willing seller agree to trade property which the seller rightfully owns, with no prior contract (according to this view) having been made between the parties to refrain from trading if there is asymmetric information. The Atlantic has described the process as "arguably the closest thing that modern finance has to a victimless crime".[34] Legalization advocates also question why "trading" where one party has more information than the other is legal in other markets, such as real estate, but not in the stock market. For example, if a geologist knows there is a high likelihood of the discovery of petroleum under Farmer Smith's land, he may be entitled to make Smith an offer for the land, and buy it, without first telling Farmer Smith of the geological data.[2] Nevertheless, circumstances can occur when the geologist would be committing fraud if, because he owes a duty to the farmer, he did not disclose the information; for example, if he had been hired by Farmer Smith to assess the geology of the farm. Advocates of legalization make free speech arguments. Punishment for communicating about a development pertinent to the next day's stock price might seem an act of censorship.[35] If the information being conveyed is proprietary information and the corporate insider has contracted to not expose it, he has no more right to communicate it than he would to tell others about the company's confidential new product designs, formulas, or bank account passwords. Some authors have used these arguments to propose legalizing insider trading on negative information (but not on positive information). Since negative information is often withheld from the market, trading on such information has a higher value for the market than trading on positive information.[36][37] There are very limited laws against "insider trading" in the commodities markets if, for no other reason than that the concept of an "insider" is not immediately analogous to commodities themselves (corn, wheat, steel, etc.). However, analogous activities such as front running are illegal under US commodity and futures trading laws. For example, a commodity broker can be charged with fraud by receiving a large purchase order from a client (one likely to affect the price of that commodity) and then purchasing that commodity before executing the client's order to benefit from the anticipated price increase. Legal differences among jurisdictions The US and the UK vary in the way the law is interpreted and applied with regard to insider trading. In the UK, the relevant laws are the Criminal Justice Act 1993, Part V, Schedule 1, and the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000, which defines an offence of Market Abuse.[38] It is also illegal to fail to trade based on inside information (whereas without the inside information the trade would have taken place). The principle is that it is illegal to trade on the basis of market-sensitive information that is not generally known. No relationship to the issuer of the security is required; all that is required is that the guilty party traded (or caused trading) whilst having inside information. Japan enacted its first law against insider trading in 1988. Roderick Seeman said, "Even today many Japanese do not understand why this is illegal. Indeed, previously it was regarded as common sense to make a profit from your knowledge."[39] In accordance with EU Directives, Malta enacted the Financial Markets Abuse Act in 2002, which effectively replaced the Insider Dealing and Market Abuse Act of 1994. The "Objectives and Principles of Securities Regulation"[40] published by the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) in 1998 and updated in 2003 states that the three objectives of good securities market regulation are: Investor protection, Insuring that markets are fair, efficient and transparent, and Reducing systemic risk. The discussion of these "Core Principles" state that "investor protection" in this context means "Investors should be protected from misleading, manipulative or fraudulent practices, including insider trading, front running or trading ahead of customers and the misuse of client assets." More than 85 percent of the world's securities and commodities market regulators are members of IOSCO and have signed on to these Core Principles. The World Bank and International Monetary Fund now use the IOSCO Core Principles in reviewing the financial health of different country's regulatory systems as part of these organization's financial sector assessment program, so laws against insider trading based on non-public information are now expected by the international community. Enforcement of insider trading laws varies widely from country to country, but the vast majority of jurisdictions now outlaw the practice, at least in principle. Larry Harris claims that differences in the effectiveness with which countries restrict insider trading help to explain the differences in executive compensation among those countries. The US, for example, has much higher CEO salaries than do Japan or Germany, where insider trading is less effectively restrained.[5]:593 By nation European Union In 2014, the European Union (EU) adopted legislation (Criminal Sanctions for Market Abuse Directive) that harmonises criminal sanctions for insider dealing. All EU Member States agreed to introduce maximum prison sentences of at least four years for serious cases of market manipulation and insider dealing, and at least two years for improper disclosure of insider information. Norway In 2009, a journalist in Nettavisen (Thomas Gulbrandsen) was sentenced to 4 months in prison for insider trading.[41] The longest prison sentence in a Norwegian trial where the main charge was insider trading, was for 8 years (2 of which suspended) when Alain Angelil was convicted in a district court on December 9, 2011.[42][43] United Kingdom See also: UK company law Regulatory fines imposed for market abuse in the UK 1996–2009. Source: from IMRO/PIA/SFA annual reports in LexisNexis 1996–2001; FSA Annual Reports, Appendix on Enforcements, 2003-2012. Further details in Tonks (2010)[44] Although insider trading in the UK has been illegal since 1980, it proved difficult to successfully prosecute individuals accused of insider trading. There were a number of notorious cases where individuals were able to escape prosecution. Instead the UK regulators relied on a series of fines to punish market abuses. These fines were widely perceived as an ineffective deterrent (Cole, 2007),[45] and there was a statement of intent by the UK regulator (the Financial Services Authority) to use its powers to enforce the legislation (specifically the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000). Between 2009–2012 the FSA secured 14 convictions in relation to insider dealing. United States Rajat Gupta, who had been managing partner of McKinsey & Co. and a director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Procter & Gamble Co., was convicted by a federal jury in 2012 of leaking inside information to hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam. The case was prosecuted by the office of United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara.[46] With the guilty plea by Perkins Hixon in 2014 for insider trading from 2010-2013 while at Evercore Partners, Bharara said in a press release that 250 defendants whom his office had charged since August 2009 had now been convicted.[47] On December 10, 2014, a federal appeals court overturned the insider trading convictions of two former hedge fund traders, Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson, based on the "erroneous" instructions given to jurors by the trial judge.[48] Insider trading is the trading of a public company's stock or other securities (such as bonds or stock options) by individuals with access to non-public information about the company. In various countries, trading based on insider information is illegal. This is due to unfairness, as one investor with some inside information could potentially make far larger profits, or at least, make profits that a typical investor would not make. The authors of one study claim that illegal insider trading raises the cost of capital for securities issuers, thus decreasing overall economic growth.[1] However, some economists have argued that insider trading should be allowed and could, in fact, benefit markets.[2] Trading by specific insiders, such as employees, is commonly permitted as long as it does not rely on material information not in the public domain. However, most jurisdictions require such trading be reported so that these can be monitored. In the United States and several other jurisdictions, trading conducted by corporate officers, key employees, directors, or significant shareholders must be reported to the regulator or publicly disclosed, usually within a few business days of the trade. The rules around insider trading are complex and vary significantly from country to country and enforcement is mixed. The definition of insider can be broad and may not only cover insiders themselves but also any person related to them, such as brokers, associates and even family members. Any person who becomes aware of non-public information and trades on that basis may be guilty. |
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