A year ago, the Department of Justice (“DOJ”) and the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) heralded data analytics in announcing parallel insider trading actions against a senior executive at a pharmaceutical company (Viatris Inc.), formerly known as Mylan N.V. (“Mylan”). The SEC asserted that “efforts to conceal the scheme through secure messaging apps and foreign cash payments were unavailing, as this case highlights the agency’s ability to use sophisticated data analysis to detect suspicious trading patterns and identify the traders behind them.”
Last year’s case was against the alleged tippee,… More
Yesterday, the full House of Representatives approved H.R. 2534, otherwise known as the Insider Trading Prohibition Act. If passed by the Senate and signed by the President, this legislation would mark an important milestone in insider trading jurisprudence. For decades, the Securities and Exchange Commission (“SEC”) and Department of Justice (“DOJ”) have pursued insider trading violations through general anti-fraud provisions, which has resulted in extensive judge-made law and ambiguity as to when actors will be held liable for insider trading. … 
The Second Circuit recently decided a pair of insider trading cases that provide additional guidance on the law following the court’s 2017 decision in Martoma. In United States v. Klein, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS 858 (2d Cir. Jan. 10, 2019), the Second Circuit upheld Defendant Schulman’s insider trading conviction. Schulman, the “tipper,” did not directly trade on material, non-public information, but rather shared it with Klein,…