Liability to Contemporaneous Traders for Insider Trading

The fact that the insider trading charges were thrown out, but the conspiracy charges stuck is curious. It appears, yet again, the judicial process and mainstream social construct of acceptable behavior collided with what Martha, her broker, and fellow investor touted as ‘nothing wrong’. Knowing more of John Savarrese’s role as Martha’s pretrial counsel, gives two more important points about Martha’s case of white collar crime. The first is questionable ethics and the other is arrogance. Mr. Savarrese has been criticized by legal analysts for not providing ethical legal advice to Martha or making the right professional choices himself. The belief is that Savarrese knew or at least suspected, Martha and Bacanovic planned to perjure themselves. As Martha’s legal counselor it was ethically negligent of Savarrese not to advise Martha of the legal repercussions of lying to the SEC. If Martha insisted on presenting her fraudulent story, Savarrese should have immediately withdrawn as her counsel (Hoffman, 2007). More importantly than if Savarrese knew or not, in her arrogance, Martha never thought this issue of a mere $45, 637 would develop into charges nor a prison sentence! She was simply above the laws and saw no reason to tell the

When assessing the economic damage to due to Paul Thayer and those that he tipped off about the acquisition of Campbell Taggart, it should be noted that some argue that this kind of insider trading circulates information and forces the stock to its “true value.” If we assume this argument to be flawed, then part of Anheuser-Busch stock dip after the announcement was due to the insider trading and the fact Anheuser-Busch probably paid more to acquire its target. Thayer and his friends trade the Campbell stock for nearly a month before any public announcement of the merger. On July 27 nearly half the volume was insider volume controlled by those individuals who were in violation of rule 14(e)-3 (See exhibit 2). The increased volume might

In this paper, we will be discussing how Sarbanes Oxley has affected the American business and if it has accomplished its goals. The goal of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) is to convey confidence in the stock exchange, but it does not defer all immoral activities that take place on the stock exchange. People no matter the law, are responsible for the quality of their work and are accountable for the integrity of themselves and their company. Their own ethical values can take precedence over those set by Sarbanes-Oxley. Not all values are equal in quality, and a person may go above the rules delegated by Sarbanes-Oxley, however, there is another side. Sarbanes-Oxley has created a fear among business practitioners that this new set of standards

The Securities Exchange Act of 1934 was passed by congress to strengthen the government’s control of the financial markets. It was preceded by the Securities Exchange Act of 1933 which was enacted during the Great Depression in hopes that the stock market crash of 1929 would not be repeated. The basic difference between the two acts was that the 1933 Act was to govern the original sales of securities by requiring that the issuers, the companies offering the securities, offer up sufficient information about themselves and the securities so that the potential buyers could make informed decisions. The 1934 Act was

The effects of the economic market crash of 1929 appeared in how the public sustained severe losses at the hands of securities traders and corporations. With the unmistakable need to restore financial specialist trust in the securities market President Roosevelt pushed for a huge securities regulation and the creation of the Securities Act of 1933 sprouted along with the approval of Congress. Then in a year later in 1934 Congress observed the need to make modifications to the 1933 Act by establishing an independent governmental regulatory body the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The SEC main responsibility came to be to ensure and protect the public against malpractices in the securities and financial markets. As the years passed businesses and technology advances developed and the economic market expanded. With the economy market positive rise many companies needed to keep up and acted upon fraudulent acts in order to stay in the business competition. Companies acted fraudulent by “cooking the books” in recording

By: Trottman-Adewumi, Yolanda; Kelley, David; Smuglin, Len; Markovich, Gregory. Journal of Securities Operations & Custody.Autumn/Fall 2017, Vol. 9 Issue 4, p302-312. 11p. , Database: Business Source Complete

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 nonpublic information about the company. In various countries, trading based on insider information is illegal. A great example for that is when “R. Foster Winans: The Corruptible Columnist Although not high-ranking in terms of dollars, the case of Wall Street Journal columnist R. Foster Winans is a landmark case for its curious outcome. Winans wrote the "Heard on the Street" column profiling a certain stock. The stocks featured in the column often went up or down according to Winans' opinion. Winans leaked the contents of his column to a group of stockbrokers, who used the tip to take up positions in

Insider trading – insider trading is the trading of a corporation’s stock or other securities by individuals with potential access to non-public information about the

Without exception, insider trading relies on two elements: the existence of a relationship that gives access to corporate information, either directly or indirectly, not meant for the personal benefit of anyone, and unfairness involved in a person taking advantage of information knowing it is unavailable to those with whom he is dealing. In SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co., the Cady ruling was supported specifying that anyone with insider information is required to disclose the information or refrain from trading3. Consequently, the court held that anyone trading on insider information was committing fraud against all others in the market. The US Supreme court reversed the criminal conviction in the case of Chiarella v. United States, a printer in the possession of nonpublic information regarding a M & A documents that he was hired to print4. The SEC then instituted rule 14e-3 of the Exchange Act in which it became illegal for anyone to trade upon material nonpublic information … if they knew the information was from an

Insider dealing has been affecting the efficiency of stock markets in different places like United States, United Kingdom and Australia. Hong Kong is of no exception. Basically, insider dealing refers to the trading of a corporation’s stock or other securities by individual with potential access to non-public information of the company. The law of insider dealing in Hong Kong provides a much more detailed definition and is very comprehensive. However, when it comes to enforcement, it seems not very effective. In the following, the law of insider dealing in Hong Kong will be summarized. After analyzing the comprehensiveness of the law, the underlying reasons of the difficulty in enforcement will be identified. Some

These acts were a violation of the Securities Act of 1933. The objectives of the Securities Act of 1933 are that investors obtain accurate reports of a company's commerce and to prevent misleading securities sales (USSEC, 2007). Although, the USSEC cannot guarantee the information provided by each company; the Securities Act of 1934 grants authority to the USSEC with disciplinary authorization (USSEC, 2007).

For this assignment, use the Internet to research high-risk investment brokerage firms that have been indicted or convicted of ethical violations to provide insight and understanding of this market segment.

The New York Stock Exchange has worked to become less exclusive to wealthy investors by opening itself to the public and allowing women to be on the exchange floor, something that was not allowed before 1943. Through its registration as a nonprofit organization and the government’s creation of the SEC, the New York Stock Exchange has worked to provide security for the public’s investments. Some of the security measures in place are requiring companies to provide detailed financial reports as well as financial operations. It has also worked to increase efficiency by upgrading technology to handle the workload of transactions that occur

One of the topics I found most interesting in this book was the differences between the stock market and the bond market that Michael Lewis to some extent explains in the beginning of chapter three. While the stock market was intensely regulated and mostly transparent, the bond market consisted of primarily large institutions and escaped serious regulation. This lack of legislative control played a great part in allowing the credit default swaps on subprime mortgage bonds, CDO’s, and the eventual collapse of the subprime market. Following the subprime mortgage crisis, the Department of the Treasury released a new regulatory plan, The Department of the Treasury Blueprint for a Modernized Financial Regulatory

Securities regulations began when Congress enacted the Securities Act of 1933 in reaction to the 1929 Stock Market Crash—the infamous start of the Great Depression. The legislature created the 1933 Act to safeguard the economy from experiencing another event like the Great Depression. The objective of the Securities Act of 1933 was to “require that investors receive financial and other significant information concerning securities being offered for public sale; and prohibit deceit, misrepresentations, and other fraud in the sale of securities.” In other words, the Securities Act of 1933 required issuers to fully disclose all material information that a reasonable shareholder would require in order to make up his or her mind about a potential investment. The Act focuses on governing offerings by issuers and creating transparency between issuers and investors so that investors receive more protection than prior to the Act.