In the Courts

On Dec. 10, 2014, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals vacated an insider-trading conviction because the government failed to prove that the defendants knew the ultimate source of their inside information had benefited from sharing the information. United States v. Newman, et al., 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 23190 (2d Cir. Dec. 10, 2014). In an opinion highly critical of recent insider-trading prosecutions, the Second Circuit emphasized past Supreme Court doctrine illustrating that “not every instance of financial unfairness constitutes fraudulent activity under [insider-trading laws].” Newman at *20 (quoting Chiarella v. United States, 445 U.S. 222, 232 (1980)).

In 2008, Todd Newman and Anthony Chiasson worked as portfolio managers in investment firms. See Newman at *3. Through a network of friends, colleagues, and some other persons they had never met, Newman and Chiasson learned financial information about two companies, Dell and NVIDIA, before the information became public. See id. at *5. The various non-public facts, which originally came from corporate insiders, all passed to Newman and Chiasson through at least three other people. Id. at *6. In their capacity as portfolio managers, Newman and Chiasson made stock trades in Dell and NVIDIA based on the information they learned. See id. at *5. These trades earned Newman's firm $4 million and Chiasson's firm $68 million in profits. See id. at *6.