In April, we issued an alert discussing the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ("SEC") and Department of Justice’s ("DOJ") expansion of insider trading to 10b5-1 plans. On June 21, 2024, a federal jury in California...more
As discussed in our March 3, 2023 post, the DOJ and SEC brought an insider trading case against the founder and former CEO and Executive Chairman of Ontrak, Inc. based upon the former executive failing the “clean hands”...more
In a first for Canadian securities laws, on October 20, 2023 Ontario’s Capital Markets Tribunal (Tribunal) released substantive guidance on the meaning of the “necessary course of business” (NCOB) exception to the prohibition...more
On Wednesday, March 1 the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced its first-ever prosecution of an individual for insider trading based on an executive’s use of 10b5-1 trading plans. Terren Peizer, the executive chairman of...more
The Commission created Rule 10b5-1 plans two decades ago. The rule essentially creates a safe haven for those who in good faith trade securities and are not in possession of inside information....more
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has released its much-anticipated rule amendments regarding the use of trading plans by insiders. On Dec. 14, 2022, the SEC finalized amendments to Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities...more
Christopher Gent, a former CEO of Vodafone Group plc and non-executive Chairman of GlaxoSmithKline plc, was appointed as the non-executive Chairman of ConvaTec Group Plc (“ConvaTec”), a company admitted to trading on the...more
As the SECond Opinions Blog continues our review of FY 2021 U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC) enforcement activity, we take a deeper dive into the agency's use of technology to generate enforcement leads. The...more
The European Securities and Markets Authority has published its final Market Abuse Guidelines on the disclosure of inside information and interactions with national prudential regulators under the EU Market Abuse Regulation....more
On January 14, 2022, Judge William Orrick of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order denying a former biopharmaceutical company executive’s motion to dismiss and allowing the...more
In March 2020, I posted a blog reviewing the evolution of the legal analysis applied to a retirement plan’s holding of “employer securities” under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended (“ERISA”)......more
While corporate stock buybacks, as well as dividend payments, are receiving significant scrutiny in the face of the coronavirus pandemic as companies look to preserve cash, the same is not currently true for stock purchases...more
Earlier this month, in a bipartisan vote of 384 to 7, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the 8-K Trading Act of 2019. A similar bill has been introduced in the Senate and given the bipartisan support in the House, is...more
On 12 October 2018, the Court of Final Appeal (CFA) found former executives of a listed company, Asia TeleMedia Limited (ATML) culpable for insider dealing. The majority four to one decision examines the "innocent purpose"...more
In Ganek v. Leibowitz, No. 16-1463 (2d Cir. Oct. 17, 2017) (Raggi, Chin, Carney), the Second Circuit reversed and remanded a district court’s determination that federal law enforcement authorities were not entitled to...more
• A divided 2nd Circuit holds that there is no requirement for a “meaningfully close personal relationship” between a tipper and tippee in order for the tipper to reap a personal benefit from the disclosure sufficient to give...more
The Second Circuit ruled today that a “meaningfully close personal relationship” is not required for insider-trading liability where a tipper discloses inside information as a gift or in exchange for some other type of...more
On 3 July 2016, Regulation 596/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of the European Union (the Market Abuse Regulation) repealed and replaced Directive 2003/6/EC on Market Abuse (the Market Abuse Directive)....more