How can they claim insider trading?? Burr’s stock transaction occurred February 13. Here are some headlines from January:
January 14: WHO said there may have been human-to-human transmission of the virus, Reuters reported.
January 15: Li Qun, head of the Chinese Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) emergency center, claims the risk of human-to-human transmission is “low,” the Journal reported.
January 17: After 12 days, the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission started giving daily updates on new cases of the coronavirus.
January 18: Despite the presence of the coronavirus, Wuhan holds a “potluck” banquet for 40,000 families to try and break a world record, The New York Times reported.
January 23: Wuhan is finally locked down, even though about 5 million people had already left the city without being screened by that time.
January 31: President Trump Bans Travel from China, Orders 1st Quarantine in 50 Years
It all depends upon what the committee was told about what to expect. If it was information that was not available to the public, meaning insider information, then that must not be acted upon. Insider information can even be an expert’s assessment of the situation, if it was something that the public would probably act upon if they had known. Knowing there is a risk in general is not the issue. Was there a specific assessment (I bet there was) of the impact on all of these business models going forward that was not available to the public.
Time will tell what will happen, I guess, but I am assuming there will be no prosecutions without some more direct evidence of wrongdoing.