For several years, Ernesto Tapanes was a simple, ordinary “oceanography survey consultant,” doing contracting work for the treasure-hunting firm Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc. One spring day in 2007, however, his life abruptly changed when he discovered an anomaly off the coast of Gibraltar. Upon further investigation, it turned out to be a sunken

A husband and wife couple accused of conspiracy and insider trading pleaded guilty in a Federal District Court in Manhattan yesterday. Jennifer Wang, a former finance vice president at Morgan Stanley, and Ruben Chen, a former hedge fund analyst at ING, were arrested on May 10 for trading securities based on insider information, which [...]

The former director of San Telmo Energy was fined $20,000 and suspended from ‘trading and directorships’ after failing to report $3.4 million worth of insider trading. According to the British Columbia Securities Commission, Stubos neglected to file reports for 191 transactions of securities for San Telmo Energy. He was director of the company [...]

As reported by local Denver media, Colorado’s top federal judge likes to party.
Now the FBI is involved, and so are allegations of violations of the Judicial Code of Conduct.
Without getting into the sordid details, recently filed court documents show Colorado’s top federal judge, Judge Edward Nottingham, was too drunk to remember how he spent [...]

After a five-week trial, former Brocade CEO Gregory L. Reyes was convicted by a federal court jury on 10 counts of conspiracy and fraud over illegal stock option backdating.
Mr. Reyes had been accused of intentionally changing the grant dates for hundreds of stock option awards without disclosing the move to investors. Sentencing is scheduled [...]

The Senate Finance and Judiciary committees have released the results of their investigation into the SEC’s firing of a former staff lawyer, Gary Aguirre, in September 2005.
Mr. Aguirre had been leading the SEC investigation into possible illegal insider trading by large hedge fund Pequot Capital that is run by Arthur J. Samberg.
Aguirre was fired after [...]

Today, in a Denver courtroom packed with former US West and Qwest employees who lost their savings in the bankruptcy of the company, a federal judge sentenced the former chief executive who presided over the company’s demise to six years in prison.
Judge Edward Nottingham also ordered the ex-CEO, Joseph Nacchio, to pay a $19 [...]

According to media reports and court filings, a hedge fund trader has pled guilty to buying and selling stocks based on tips about changes in UBS’s analyst stock ratings. The trader, Mark Lenowitz used inside information about planned ratings changes when he traded securities at hedge funds Chelsey Capital and Q Capital Investment [...]

As the Toronto Star is reporting, a Canadian couple is being accused of illegal insider trading stemming from a deal that he learned about through recovering emails on behalf of executives at the company where he worked.
According to the Ontario Securities Commission, Shane Bashir Shuman, who worked in the IT department of MDS Sciex, improperly [...]

Amaranth Advisors LLC, a collapsed hedge fund, was charged by federal regulators with attempting to manipulate natural gas markets. The company is charged with attempting to lower the price of natural gas on the New York Mercantile Exchange in order to profit through an electronic futures exchange company, InterContinental Exchange Inc.
The Commodity Futures Trading [...]

While the old adage of being caught with a “hand in the cookie jar” might seem appropriate in a stock options fraud case involving Wireless Facilities, this is certainly one of the biggest cookie jars we’ve ever seen. Vencent Donlan has been convicted of embezzling over $6.3 million from the company by – [...]

Chile’s securities regulator has fined former presidential candidate Sebastian Pinera US$680,000 for conducting illegal insider trading of the airline stock LAN Airlines SA.
At issue was that Mr. Pinera, a Board of Director member of the company, bought the airline’s stock just a few days before a strong earnings report in July of last year. [...]

Office Depot is feeling the heat surrounding its recent warning to investors that sales were down due to a weak economy. The problem? It seems that some Wall Street analysts were privy to the information a week earlier.
According to the analysts, the warning they received from the Office Depot Investor Relations Department re-emphasized earlier alerts [...]

The Wall Street Journal and other media outlets are reporting a large amount of suspicious option trading in advance of the Hilton-buyout by Blackstone Group announced on July 3rd.
As Dow Jones reported:
Traders booked massive profits in positions on Hilton Hotels Corp. as the stock surged 26% after the company said Blackstone Group will buy [...]

The SEC filed lawsuits against five former executives of Veritas Software on the grounds that they each played a role in an accounting fraud, itentionally manipulating the company’s financial performance over the course of three years. While the former controllers of the company will pay $278,000 to settle the allegations against them, three of [...]

According to media reports, 20th Century Fox has quietly inked a deal to revive Gordon Gekko to the silver screen. When last seen, the corrupt Gekko, an Oscar-winning role for Michael Douglas, was on the brink of surrendering his white cuffs for handcuffs, having been sold out by his protégé Bud Fox, played by [...]

Brocade Communications has agreed to pay a $7 million civil penalty in a settlement with the SEC for allegations that former company executives committed securities fraud by continuously granting backdated stock options. The fine was paid in a deal that allowed Brocade to neither admit nor deny the charges.
The company finds itself paving [...]

The SEC has settled charges against California-based software maker Mercury Interactive to the tune of $28 million. According to the SEC, former senior officers of the software maker perpetrated a fraudulent and deceptive scheme from 1997 to 2005 to award themselves and other employees undisclosed, secret compensation by backdating stock option grants, failing to [...]

As the Times in the U.K. reports… GLG Partners, the £10 billion London-based hedge fund, has been hit with its second insider trading fine from the French financial regulator, Autorité des Marchés Financiers (AMF) , within the past six months.
Underscoring the severity of the misconduct, this was the largest fine that AMF could have levied.
At [...]

In a case of what seems to be a misinterpretation of one’s title, Chief Insider Trading Compliance Officer Kevin J. Heron has been accused of insider trading in a lawsuit filed by the SEC.
Mr. Heron was the former General Counsel, Corporate Secretary and Chief Insider Trading Compliance Officer of Amkor Technology, Inc. The SEC alleges [...]

Comverse Technology’s former General Counsel, William F. Sorin, has been sentenced to 366 days in prison for securities backdating, in a plea-bargain made with the Brooklyn district attorney.
Sorin was also ordered to pay $52 million in damages, as compensations to stock holders who suffered losses by the securities backdating, which took place in 1998-2002. Payment [...]

One day this past week (Wednesday to be specific), an inaccurate blog posting about a delay in an impending product launch for Apple wiped $4 billion off its market value (3%).
As PC World reported, the popular technology blog, Engadget, posted a story claiming the expected June launch of the iPhone would be delayed [...]

On the heels of Credit Suisse’s celebration of a new chief executive, the company got the news that a former employee, senior Wall Street banker Hafiz Naseem, had been arrested and charged with 23 counts of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy.
The former energy banker allegedly forwarded top secret details of Credit [...]

The Justice Department saw its five-year investigation of former corporate executives end on a high note with the conviction of one-time Qwest Chief Executive Joe Nacchio. Nacchio joined the likes of Enron’s Jeffrey Skilling and Worldcom’s Bernard Ebbers as he was found guilty on 19 of 42 counts of illegal insider trading.
Collecting [...]

One might think that insider trading would have dropped in recent years on the heels of high-profile convictions such as Martha Stewart. If so, one might think “wrong.” An example of this in action is that the SEC said it suspects insider trading in connection with the $1.68 billion purchase of Petco Animal Supplies Inc. [...]