Don't Pass on Confidential Stock Tips at the Congressional Picnic
A new rule for the Trump era: If you're already under federal investigation, don't insider trade.
This post originally appeared in Money Stuff.
If it weren’t for the fact that he is a prominent pro-Trump congressman, the civil and criminal insider trading cases brought by the SEC and federal prosecutors yesterday against Representative Chris Collins, his son, and his son’s girlfriend’s father, would be pretty run-of-the-mill. Collins was a director of a publicly traded Australian (but also U.S.-traded) biotech company called Innate Immunotherapeutics Ltd., and the company’s CEO emailed him bad news about the results of clinical trials. Collins didn’t trade himself after getting this bad news, and lost money when it was announced and the stock went down. But he did allegedly tip his son, who was also a shareholder, and who sold stock after the alleged tip but before the results of the trials were announced. The son also allegedly tipped a bunch of other people laid out on a handy flow chart, including his girlfriend and various of her family members.