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An unusual surge in Goldman Sachs' share price in the last 10 minutes of trading on Tuesday raised eyebrows on Wall Street, as it came two hours before news of Warren Buffett's big investment in the bank. Goldman Sachs shares rose more than $5 heading into the close of trading even as the rest of the market tumbled, leaving traders suspicious that inside information was used to make a profit. "Obviously someone knew the Buffett news that was coming out. I noticed it yesterday and I was telling my colleagues something is going on with Goldman," said Dave Rovelli, managing...

Martha Stuart went to jail for insider trading. More then 50 senators and representatives had stakes in AIG, Lehman, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns Cos. or IndyMac Bancorp Inc. I just did a search on insider trading and got no hits. Instead of worrying about troopergate, maybe the MSM should be investigating these 50 congressmen to see if any of them sold their stocks recently, like in the last 2 weeks.

PARIS (AFP) - The former German head of aircraft manufacturer Airbus, Gustav Humbert, was detained for questioning by France's financial crime unit Monday in connection with alleged insider trading at Airbus parent EADS, a source close to the matter said. The French financial market regulator, AMF, in April alleged in a report that Humbert sold 160,000 EADS shares in November 2005, earning 1.685 million euros (2.7 million dollars). He is suspected of having benefited from privileged information on EADS' financial prospects as well as delays to the Airbus A380 superjumbo project, which were announced in June 2006 and caused the...

FTW, December 6, 2001 -- On October 9th, FTW broke a story on insider trading connected to the 9-11 attacks on the World Trade Center that sparked worldwide controversy. In that story we reported how the Israeli Herzliyya Institute for Counterterrorism had documented that unknown individuals -- with accurate foreknowledge of the attacks -- had purchased an obvious and unusually large number of "put" options on United and American Airlines shortly before the attacks. Additional companies hit hard by the insider trading included Axa Re(insurance) and Munich Re as well as American investment giants Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley. Put ...

Excerpt - Joe Nacchio, the aggressive chief executive who oversaw Qwest's spectacular growth as well as its near collapse into bankruptcy, was found guilty on 19 of 42 counts of illegal insider trading, a stellar finish for the Justice Department in its five- year probe of the company's former executives. As Judge Edward Nottingham read the guilty counts Thursday afternoon, Nacchio's eyes watered and his lips stayed firmly pressed together. With his hands crisscrossed on the defense table, he briefly glanced at the gallery and raised his eyebrows as if in disbelief. Earlier, as not-guilty pronouncements were read on the...

The political scandal that has engulfed Central Florida's toll-road agency, most powerful attorneys, biggest developers, best-known political activist, the Orlando Magic and a host of others started in an unlikely way: with a trespassing dog. When David Strong of Winter Park discovered that a neighbor's dog had done his business on Strong's lawn one too many times, he scooped up the evidence and, in a fit of anger, smeared it on the dog-owner's shirt and neck. Strong was charged with misdemeanor battery, took an anger-management class and performed community service, then forgot all about it. At least until he entered...

A former junior banker at Merrill Lynch yesterday confessed to of a brazen insider-trading scheme that also enlisted an exotic dancer, a retired Croatian seamstress, a New Jersey mailman and moles inside a BusinessWeek print shop..........the Trans-Atlantic stock fraud scam that racked up $6.7 million in ill-gotten gains....... Trading on tips from the young banker on six big mergers netted $6.4 million of the illicit profits, making it by far the most lucrative scheme concocted by the insider-trading ring's masterminds, Eugene Plotkin, 27, and David Pajcin, 29. The pair, who met while they both worked at Goldman Sachs, recruited Shpigelman...

One of the nation's most prominent hedge funds, Pequot Capital Management, is under investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission for possible insider trading, according to government officials briefed on the case.

George Soros failed in a bid to overturn an insider-trading conviction at France's highest appeals tribunal, but vowed to pursue an appeal....... The Court of Cassation, the tribunal of last resort in France, yesterday upheld a March 2005 judgment that Soros violated the law when he bought Societe Generale SA shares in 1988 with knowledge that the bank might be a takeover target. The Hungary-born financier....has been fighting the case for 17 years, will appeal......The verdict came as the 75-year-old former financier turned his attention from his investing career to political and charitable activities.

The highest court in France on Wednesday rejected a bid by George Soros, the billionaire investor, to overturn a conviction for insider trading in a case dating back nearly 20 years, leaving the first blemish on his five-decade investing career. The panel, the Cour de Cassation, upheld the conviction of Soros, 75, an American citizen, for buying and selling Société Générale shares in 1988 after receiving information about a planned corporate raid on the bank. Ron Soffer, his lawyer, said Soros planned to take the case to the European Court of Human Rights, saying that the length of the proceedings...

Murakami Yoshiaki (that's my son's name, too...but no doubt the characters are different) faces a possible three years in prison and a fine of up to $30,000 - small change when you consider the billions he has made. Murakami is a corporate raider in a land where business is done by consensus. In the end, he admitted to inadvertently "breaking the law" by buying shares after he had "heard" that a company might be the target of a hostile takeover. Normally, this is called insider trading. But the Japanese also have a way of not saying things directly. It causes...

NEW YORK - Two Goldman Sachs employees made more than $6.7 million through insider trading by enlisting an analyst who provided information on Wall Street deals and a forklift driver who leaked copies of a market-moving magazine, authorities said Tuesday. Prosecutors called it one of the most extensive insider trading cases in decades, and it has no shortage of salacious details. The case includes allegations that the men tried to get strippers to coax stock tips from investment bankers who had inside knowledge of pending mergers and acquisitions. "We've never seen before a case involving so many different attempts to...

Two Democratic lawmakers have prepared legislation that would prohibit members of Congress and their aides from trading stocks based on nonpublic information gathered on Capitol Hill. Rep. Louise Slaughter, the New York Democrat who wrote the bill, said: “Top leadership aides know what is happening before anyone else. The potential for abuse there is incredible.” 'Kudlow & Company' wants to know what you think. POLL

Just three days after starting his new job at Sirius Satellite Radio Inc., shock jock Howard Stern is now able to sell the roughly $200 million in Sirius stock that he received as part of his five-year deal with the company. Sirius' contract with Stern runs through 2010, but the company disclosed last week that it was giving Stern and his agent 34.4 million shares of stock right away because it had already reached certain undisclosed targets for subscriber growth under the deal it signed with Stern in late 2004. On Wednesday, the company made another regulatory filing saying that...

Toronto Globe & Mail Thursday, December 8, 2005 Page A4 Liberal leak led to insider trading, Harper suggests By CAMPBELL CLARK CHARLOTTETOWN -- Conservative Leader Stephen Harper suggested yesterday the Liberal government was involved in insider trading through leaks of an announcement of a new policy on income trusts that caused a stir of trading in the markets. The effort to capitalize on the issue came as the Conservative Leader's campaign moved into a second phase, aiming at smaller, specific slices of the electorate with targeted policy initiatives now that most of the high-profile announcements have been made. Yesterday, as...

General Motors Bars Senior Executives From Buying, Selling Company Stock Indefinitely DETROIT (AP) -- General Motors Corp. has forbidden senior executives and other employees with access to internal financial information from buying or selling company stock indefinitely, a spokeswoman for the automaker said Monday. GM spokeswoman Toni Simonetti said a memo was sent to senior executives May 24 barring them and some of their employees from buying or selling stock. Simonetti said she didn't know how many people were affected, but the company has about 400 senior executives. Simonetti said GM regularly has blackout periods when employees aren't supposed to...

Forbes ex-world’s richest man jailed in Japan AFP Posted online: Thursday, June 16, 2005 at 1252 hours IST TOKYO, JUNE 16: Former rail and real-estate magnate Yoshiaki Tsutsumi, who was considered the world's richest man at the height of Japan's economic miracle in the late 1980s, pleaded guilty today to charges of insider trading in his fallen empire. "Facts are as stated," Tsutsumi, 71, told the Tokyo District Court during his first court hearing in the case that could land him in prison. "I feel seriously responsible as the man who led the Seibu Group. I am sorry," Tsutsumi, wearing...

"There is some evidence that plaintiffs and their attorneys are profitably short-selling the stock of the companies they intend to sue," writes Moin Yahya of the University of Alberta law faculty in a new paper called "The Legal Status of 'Dump & Sue'" (SSRN, Mar. 9). Strategic litigants or their attorneys thus stand to capture two distinct strands of revenue: one from the eventual settlement of the suit, the other from the profits they capture after their adversary's stock declines on the announcement of the suit. (Alternatively, some lawsuits might be rendered profitable by the gains from short-selling even though...

A French appeals court on Thursday confirmed a conviction of U.S. billionaire George Soros for insider trading and a 2.2 million euro ($2.87 million) fine. ADVERTISEMENT Hungarian-born Soros had appealed a French court’s 2002 decision which found him guilty of using insider information regarding a failed 1988 corporate raid on bank Societe Generale to make $2 million on the company’s stock. The financier turned philanthropist told the appeals court last month he did not believe he had done anything wrong. His lawyers said they would appeal Thursday’s decision. Societe Generale was privatised in 1987 and its stock rose the following...

FRENCH TOAST: George Soros lost the latest round of his 16-year battle with French regulators. Photo: Jim Alcorn Billionaire George Soros, the former investor and current philanthropist and political activist, failed yesterday to convince a French appeals court to overturn his 2002 conviction for insider trading. Soros, 74, is expected to take his conviction — related to the 1988 purchase and sale of shares in Societe Generale — to the equivalent of France's Supreme Court in an attempt to clear the sole blemish from his 40-year investment career. In 2002, a trial court in France found Soros used insider...

Corporate boards are shedding their sleepy images and becoming more ruthless when something is not quite right at the top. The result: Top U.S. executives are being knocked off their pedestals faster than ever. Boards are asking high-level company officers to hit the road for anything ranging from a financial scandal, lackluster results, improper insider trades or even an affair with another executive. In February, U.S. companies announced 103 CEO changes compared with 92 in January, according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, an outplacement and employment research firm. It was the fourth consecutive increase in monthly turnover and the first...

ATLANTA - ChoicePoint Inc., a leading data warehouser, says the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating stock sales by its top two executives and the embattled company has decided to stop giving personal information about consumers to small businesses. Its shares tumbled on the news. The dual announcements were made Friday by the Alpharetta, Ga.-based company in a news statement and a regulatory filing. The SEC probe involves sales of stock by chief executive Derek Smith and president Douglas Curling for a $16.6 million profit in the months after the company learned its massive database had been breached and before...

March 2, 2005 -- Investigators looking into insider-trading allegations in the blockbuster deal between Howard Stern and Sirius Radio are checking out reported boasts by the shock jock's limo driver that he profited from the deal, The Post has learned. The announcement last Oct. 5 that Stern would ditch Infinity Broadcasting for Sirius sent shares of the satellite broadcaster skyrocketing. The next day, Stern said on-air that his driver, Ronnie Mund — known on the show as "Ronnie the limo driver" — bragged in the studio about how he had bought Sirius stock cheap before his boss joined the company....

PARIS - Billionaire investor George Soros asked the Paris appeals court to overturn his conviction for insider trading on Thursday, telling a panel of three judges: "My reputation is at stake." Related Quotes DJIA NASDAQ S&P 500 10785.22 2058.62 1201.59 +30.96 -2.72 +0.84 Delayed Data Providers - Disclaimer -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sponsored by: New Pro Platform The Hungarian-born financier was fined 2.2 million euros ($2.8 million at today's rates) in December 2002 — the amount he was accused of making from buying and selling shares of French bank Societe Generale with insider knowledge 17 years ago. Questioned by judge Jean-Baptiste Avel, Soros...

The SEC has launched an insider-trading probe of shock jock Howard Stern's deal to join Sirius Satellite Radio. In the two weeks running up to the blockbuster announcement last October, Sirius stock soared nearly 40 percent........the feds want to determine if someone who knew the deal was coming started buying up stock in anticipation of shares skyrocketing when the news got out. When Sirius made the surprise announcement, the stock jumped another 15 percent. Yesterday, New York gossip journalist Chaunce Hayden, a frequent guest on the Stern show, received a subpoena from the SEC. He was told he needs to...

Paris - Billionaire investor George Soros this week gets a chance to argue that the French court that convicted him of insider trading in 2002 made a mistake. The Paris court of appeals will hear Soros's arguments on Thursday and make a decision a few weeks later on whether to uphold or overturn the original verdict. Soros, 74, who spent $26.5 million (164.30 million) in a failed effort to defeat President George W Bush in last year's US presidential elections, is appealing to quash the only insider trading charge of his 40-year investing career. "This was not insider trading," said...

<p>There is a rumor attibuted to street dot com website that claims Hillary Clinto will be charged with a crime.</p>

Editor's Note: The following article is a satire. New York State Attorney General Elliot Spitzer shocked the world today -- as well as the state department and the Bush administration -- with his announcement that he is charging terrorist mastermind and al Qaeda head Osama bin Laden with insider trading. At a press conference brilliantly situated on the hallowed grounds where the World Trade Center once stood, Mr. Spitzer outlined an international investment scheme so heinous that, if properly prosecuted, could lead to the eventual capture and incarceration of America’s greatest terrorist threat. Moreover, according to Spitzer, these investment manipulations...

Ousted Army Chief Blasts Bush Iraq Policy Tue Sep 2, 4:49 PM ET By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer WASHINGTON - Thomas E. White, forced to resign as Army secretary in May, has fired back in a book that describes the Bush administration's postwar effort in Iraq (news - web sites) as "anemic" and "totally inadequate." The book, which presents a blueprint for revitalizing Iraq, asserts that the administration underestimated the difficulty of putting that country back on its feet after the fall of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites). "Clearly the view that the war to `liberate' Iraq would...

As discussed in detail in this post a couple weeks ago by Professor Bainbridge, a recent study by Alan J. Ziobrowski of Georgia State University and colleagues at three other schools showed that during the 1990s, senators' stock picks (which must be publicly disclosed periodically) beat the market by 12 percentage points a year on average.  By comparison, corporate insiders only beat the market by about six percentage points a year, and U.S. households underperformed the market by 1.4 percentage points a year on average. As reported in this article in Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, the authors of the study conclude...

Last week, a well-respected online business publication provided yet another possible link between Neil Goldschmidt and the Texans who recruited him to take over Portland General Electric. On Oct. 28, Bloomberg News published an account of Texas Pacific Group's struggle to buy Oregon's largest utility. The story quoted Richard Blum, a San Francisco investor who has been a business partner and hiking companion of Texas Pacific CEO David Bonderman for the past decade. Blum is no stranger to acquiring heavily regulated businesses in Oregon--nor is he a stranger to Goldschmidt. Correspondence obtained by WW from the state archives shows that...

On September 14, in the midst of the CBS/Rathergate scandal, Viacom CEO Sumner Redstone sold 341,500 shares of his options -- 1/3 of his shares. Insider info, anyone?

Terasa (Terry) Heinz and Kenneth L. Lay, formerly of Enron, are both Trustees of "The H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment," 1001 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Suite 735, Washington, DC 20004.This foudation is required to file a non-profit tax return (IRS Form 990) part of which is available to the public. Forms 990 for the years 1997 through 2001 are available on the internet at "www.Guidestar.org".These reports indicate that Terry and Ken have had a professional relationship from at least 10/1/97 through 9/30/02. In fact, after years of reporting Houston as his address, the 990 for...

The recent conviction of Martha Stewart for lying to federal investigators looking into “insider trading” is one of the sad signs of our times. If you create enough laws, everyone will be a criminal. Perjury should of course be a crime, even when it is committed by a President of the United States. But insider trading is something else. The big objection to insider trading is that it is not fair that one side in a stock trade has knowledge that the other side does not. Some have analogized it to selling a car that is a “lemon” or a...

DALLAS - A federal appeals court has reinstated a guilty verdict against a Dallas businessman charged with insider trading. The 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals on Friday overturned the 2002 decision of a Florida judge who had thrown out the jury verdict and a $1 million penalty against Scott Ginsburg, former chief executive of radio station owner Evergreen Media Corp. The appeals court also reinstated the fine. A Florida jury found Ginsburg guilty of passing insider information to his brother, Mark, and father, Jordan. Prosecutors said the information enabled them to earn $1.8 million in profit by trading shares...

(This is an exerpt only. Fair use of copywrited material applies.) US senators' personal stock portfolios outperformed the market by an average of 12 per cent a year in the five years to 1998, according to a new study. "The results clearly support the notion that members of the Senate trade with a substantial informational advantage over ordinary investors," says the author of the report, Professor Alan Ziobrowski of the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. He admits to being "very surprised" by his findings, which were based on 6,000 financial disclosure filings and are due to be...

Entrepreneur makes collector's items with plaid, doily backgrounds Entrepreneur makes collector's items with plaid, doily backgrounds Those who feel lifestyle guru Martha Stewart got a raw deal in court can now wear their disgust in the form of a three-inch button saying, "Free Martha." Kansas City entrepreneur Sharon Young has created the campaign-style buttons for her online store, PoliticalShop.com. Besides the "Free Martha" button, Young offers designs including the messages "Don't cook Martha's goose," "Stop the witch hunt," "I still (heart) Martha," and "Martha. She's a good thing." One features an old-fashioned font on a doily background. Young claims in...

Study shows stock portfolios outperform market by 12% WASHINGTON – While Martha Stewart is facing jail time for her role in dumping stock just before a government action would decrease its value, U.S. senators have an uncanny knack for doing this on a regular basis – with impunity from the securities laws they write. A study of U.S. senators' personal stock portfolios has found they outperformed the market by an average of 12 percent a year in the five years to 1998. "The results clearly support the notion that members of the Senate trade with a substantial informational advantage over...

WASHINGTON - A report showing outsize portfolio gains for US senators is raising new questions about ethics and conflicts of interest for Capitol Hill power brokers. The study found that during the boom years of 1993-98, a majority of US Senators were trading stocks - and beating the market by 12 percentage points a year on average. By comparison, corporate insiders beat the market by 5 percent, and typical households underperformed by 1.4 percent.Financial experts interviewed for this story say the senators' collective achievement is a statistical stunner, too big to be a mere coincidence.That doesn't mean lawmakers were consciously...

Are U.S. senators real 'inside traders'? Study shows stock portfolios outperform market by 12% -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: March 9, 2004 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2004 WorldNetDaily.com WASHINGTON – While Martha Stewart is facing jail time for her role in dumping stock just before a government action would decrease its value, U.S. senators have an uncanny knack for doing this on a regular basis – with impunity from the securities laws they write. A study of U.S. senators' personal stock portfolios has found they outperformed the market by an average of 12 percent a year in the five years to 1998. "The...

US senators' personal stock portfolios outperformed the market by an average of 12 per cent a year in the five years to 1998, according to a new study. "The results clearly support the notion that members of the Senate trade with a substantial informational advantage over ordinary investors," says the author of the report, Professor Alan Ziobrowski of the Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. He admits to being "very surprised" by his findings, which were based on 6,000 financial disclosure filings and are due to be published in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis. "The results...

Martha Stewart told a traveling companion that she knew about Sam Waksal's frantic efforts to unload shares of ImClone Systems in December 2001, according to testimony Thursday in Stewart's criminal obstruction trial. Stewart told Mariana Pasternak that she knew Waksal "was trying to sell his stock, that his daughter was trying to sell her stock, that Merrill Lynch refused to sell," Pasternak testified in federal court in Lower Manhattan. The account casts more doubt on Stewart's claim to have sold the stock under an informal stop-loss agreement with her broker. Merrill Lynch refused to allow Waksal to transfer his personal...

As Martha Stewart's trial moves into a third week, an important question remains unasked: Why are the feds prosecuting someone for receiving inside information, anyway? Isn't the criminal the corporate official who acts on knowledge that the public doesn't have? The government charges that on Dec. 27, 2001, Stewart learned from her broker that Samuel Waksal, the chief executive of ImClone Systems Inc., was trying to sell his stock because he knew that the Food and Drug Administration would announce an adverse decision the next day about his company's cancer drug, Erbitux. Stewart then sold her own 3,928 shares...

Fake Crimes Paul Craig Roberts Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004 Studies show Americans are close to being the worst educated and least aware population among First World countries. Americans easily stumble into war and give up their rights because of exaggerated fears of terrorists and criminals. Americans have been losing accountable government, liberty and justice for a long time. At some point, these values become irretrievable. Consider justice. The United States has the highest rate of incarceration in the world and imprisons 6 to 10 times as many people as any other industrialized country. Between 1990 and 2000, the U.S. population...

US chicken exports rise as Asian bird flu spreads (Reuters) By K.T. Arasu U.S. chicken exports to Asia have begun rising to fill a supply gap as a bird flu virus strikes down millions of chickens from Pakistan to Japan, industry sources said on Monday. The chicken sales come at a time when the $3.2 billion U.S. beef export sector remains locked down after top importers like Japan banned beef from the United States, following the first U.S. case of mad cow disease, disclosed on Dec. 23. Thailand, the world's fourth-largest poultry exporter, has been hit hard by the virus,...

Martha Stewart's legal team served up a surprise dish yesterday: She now admits she might have received an alleged insider stock tip, after all. But even if she did, her lawyer insists the domestic diva didn't know it was illegal. The startling admission - and legal gamble - came during opening arguments yesterday in Stewart's trial as prosecutors called one of the country's best-known and most powerful women a liar. They revealed one of Stewart's "best friends" will testify Stewart mentioned key insider information moments after dumping all her ImClone Systems stock. "Someone else might have slipped in the fact...

<p>As we reflect on the spectacle of Martha Stewart striding into a Manhattan courthouse, investors should note that it's not just celebrities and corporate bigwigs whose trades attract the scrutiny of watchdogs. And although many believe their trades will be too small to get noticed, Ms. Stewart's sale of just one-tenth of 1% of the 7.7 million Imclone shares traded on Dec. 27, 2001, proves just the opposite. Relatively small fish -- lawyers, commercial printers, consultants, spouses, children and friends of "tipsters" -- have been caught, fined, humiliated and prosecuted.</p>

WASHINGTON - Three lawyers, including a supporter of Wesley Clark (news - web sites), are requesting an inquiry by federal regulators into Howard Dean (news - web sites)'s sale of about $15,000 in stock in five Vermont banks in 1991, arguing that the then-governor may have engaged in insider trading. The three complaints to the Securities and Exchange Commission (news - web sites) in Washington and the U.S. attorney's office in Burlington, Vt., follow news reports about Dean's decision to sell the shares more than a decade ago when some Vermont banks were experiencing financial problems. Dean said he sold...

WASHINGTON - Three lawyers, including a supporter of Wesley Clark, are requesting an inquiry by federal regulators into Howard Dean's sale of about $15,000 in stock in five Vermont banks in 1991, arguing that the then-governor may have engaged in insider trading. The three complaints to the Securities and Exchange Commission in Washington and the U.S. attorney's office in Burlington, Vt., follow news reports about Dean's decision to sell the shares more than a decade ago when some Vermont banks were experiencing financial problems. Dean said he sold the stock because "it became clear to me that information I might...