Risk and Compliance Blog

Hedge Fund Manager Faces Insider Trading Charges (6 of 7)

Written by Cathy O'Donovan | Dec 1, 2016 4:00:00 PM

 

On November 17th, Todd Cipperman spoke on the topic of "The Evolving Regulatory Landscape - Practical Insights for Compliance Officers" at a webinar co hosted by MyComplianceOffice and Cipperman Compliance Services LLC. This is the sixth post of a seven part series which will address some of the topics covered by Todd during the webinar. You can watch videos of that webinar here.

The SEC has sued a large hedge fund manager and its principal for insider trading and failure to file beneficial ownership reports.  The SEC complaint alleges that the principal used his insider status as a significant shareholder of a public company to obtain material non-public information about an impending asset sale from a senior executive who expected him to keep the information confidential.  Instead, according to the SEC, the respondents significantly increased their equity position and profited when the asset sale became public.  The SEC also charges the respondents with failing to file required Section 16 and Section 13 beneficial holdings reports over 40 times with respect to 8 issuers. 

OUR TAKE: Any hedge or private equity firm that takes a significant ownership position in portfolio companies must implement controls to ensure blackout periods around material, nonpublic events.  Also, the SEC won’t accept any excuses for an investment firm that fails to implement policies and procedures to ensure timely filing of Section 16 and Section 13 beneficial holdings reports. 

https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2016/comp-pr2016-189.pdf

Author of post: Todd Cipperman, Cipperman Compliance Services LLC

This is the sixth post in our seven-part series following a webinar with Todd Cipperman on "The Evolving Regulatory Landscape - Practical Insights for Compliance Officers" . Subscribe to get notified of part 7, "SEC Filed Record Number of Enforcement Cases in Fiscal 2016 (10/13/16)".

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