5 ms·

I'm not a lawyer so nothing I say below means anything. From what I can tell - yes - he was guilty of insider trading by the letter of the law. Sharing insider

by xnull 12y ago

I'm not a lawyer so nothing I say below means anything. From what I can tell - yes - he was guilty of insider trading by the letter of the law. Sharing insider information as CEO about the future of the company with shareholders is by definition insider trading. Despite circumstances, warning that contracts were being gutted is still illegal.

Navarr 12y ago
Is it because it was made to the shareholders? If it had instead been announced publically would it have been considered insider trading?
- otakucode 12y ago
  No, sharing information publicly is never insider trading. What makes it insider trading is for one group to have access to information about a company that another group does not have. I believe, from the training I've had, that the standard is usually 48 hours after public disclosure of information before you are allowed to act on it. Of course, insider trading laws are broken on a minute-to-minute basis by hundreds of corporate executives and others. If you want to nail someone for insider trading, and they have a management position at a company, you could do it fairly easily. White collar crime is very rarely even investigated, let alone prosecuted or punished, though.
  - true_religion 12y ago
    On the face of it sounds like a hard to comply with rule. If you worked high-up within a publicly traded company, you'd have to tell no one anything about your job.
    - superuser2 12y ago
      You simply couldn't talk about things that are relevant to your share price. "My boss was an asshole today." Fine. "We're about to get bought out for $x million." Very much not fine.
      - true_religion 12y ago
        The problem is that you can't go into any normal level of detail without possibly infringing on the law. Well if your boss was an asshole today, because you can't make any sales that's something you can say as a realtor in a private company, but can't say as the guy trying to close XXX,000 sized seat contracts at a public company because your inability to perform is going to be reflected in the quarterly reports. > "We're about to get bought out for $x million." Very much not fine. Here's another example. If your company is in the process of a public merger, and you're publicly involved in the M&A process you can't throw a wild party the day before the public announcement of its success, because someone will inevitably ask "why are you guys celebrating?"
    - glesica 12y ago
      Yep, I'm effectively not allowed to trade individual stocks in my job because of the fear of insider trading. And I don't even have access to insider information, it is just possible that I could, at some point, have access to such information. Mutual funds and stuff like that are fine though.
    - jacquesm 12y ago
      So, don't communicate with the shareholders of a public company outside of official company channels. That's a fairly easy rule.
      - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
        So, launder the information through a third party like Primary Global Research.

by xnull 12y ago

Navarr 12y ago

Is it because it was made to the shareholders? If it had instead been announced publically would it have been considered insider trading?

otakucode 12y ago
No, sharing information publicly is never insider trading. What makes it insider trading is for one group to have access to information about a company that another group does not have. I believe, from the training I've had, that the standard is usually 48 hours after public disclosure of information before you are allowed to act on it. Of course, insider trading laws are broken on a minute-to-minute basis by hundreds of corporate executives and others. If you want to nail someone for insider trading, and they have a management position at a company, you could do it fairly easily. White collar crime is very rarely even investigated, let alone prosecuted or punished, though.
- true_religion 12y ago
  On the face of it sounds like a hard to comply with rule. If you worked high-up within a publicly traded company, you'd have to tell no one anything about your job.
  - superuser2 12y ago
    You simply couldn't talk about things that are relevant to your share price. "My boss was an asshole today." Fine. "We're about to get bought out for $x million." Very much not fine.
    - true_religion 12y ago
      The problem is that you can't go into any normal level of detail without possibly infringing on the law. Well if your boss was an asshole today, because you can't make any sales that's something you can say as a realtor in a private company, but can't say as the guy trying to close XXX,000 sized seat contracts at a public company because your inability to perform is going to be reflected in the quarterly reports. > "We're about to get bought out for $x million." Very much not fine. Here's another example. If your company is in the process of a public merger, and you're publicly involved in the M&A process you can't throw a wild party the day before the public announcement of its success, because someone will inevitably ask "why are you guys celebrating?"
  - glesica 12y ago
    Yep, I'm effectively not allowed to trade individual stocks in my job because of the fear of insider trading. And I don't even have access to insider information, it is just possible that I could, at some point, have access to such information. Mutual funds and stuff like that are fine though.
  - jacquesm 12y ago
    So, don't communicate with the shareholders of a public company outside of official company channels. That's a fairly easy rule.
    - fnordfnordfnord 12y ago
      So, launder the information through a third party like Primary Global Research.