September 19, 2021

Bristol-Meyers Squibb Employee Conducted Numerous Internet Searches Re: How To Not Get Caught Insider Trading Before Engaging In Insider Trading

Which, it turns out, were not very helpful. Mr. Ramnarine, who served as assistant treasurer for capital markets at Bristol-Meyers Squibb from June, 2011, was charged in New Jersey federal court with three counts of securities fraud related to alleged insider trading in the stocks of three companies Bristol-Meyers was targeting for acquisition. According to the complaint, about a week before some of the alleged trading, Mr. Ramnarine opened up Yahoo on his office computer in Princeton, NJ and entered a flurry of searches, including “can option be traced to purchaser,” “can stock option be traced to purchase inside trading,” “insider trading options traceillegal [sic].” Mr. Ramnarine also looked at web sites and articles discussing insider trading laws and ways to avoid insider trading violations, and even downloaded press releases on insider trading from the office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the complaint. Lessons In How Not To Insider Trade [Deal Journal] US v. Robert Ramnarine [Criminal Complaint]
Author:
Updated:
Original:

Which, it turns out, were not very helpful.

Mr. Ramnarine, who served as assistant treasurer for capital markets at Bristol-Meyers Squibb from June, 2011, was charged in New Jersey federal court with three counts of securities fraud related to alleged insider trading in the stocks of three companies Bristol-Meyers was targeting for acquisition. According to the complaint, about a week before some of the alleged trading, Mr. Ramnarine opened up Yahoo on his office computer in Princeton, NJ and entered a flurry of searches, including “can option be traced to purchaser,” “can stock option be traced to purchase inside trading,” “insider trading options traceillegal [sic].” Mr. Ramnarine also looked at web sites and articles discussing insider trading laws and ways to avoid insider trading violations, and even downloaded press releases on insider trading from the office of the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the complaint.

Lessons In How Not To Insider Trade [Deal Journal]
US v. Robert Ramnarine [Criminal Complaint]

Related

News

Before They Were Wearing Wires And Trying To Get Each Other To Make Incriminating Statements Re: Securities Fraud, SAC Capital Employees Were Using Threesomes As A Front For Insider Trading

src="https://dealbreaker.com/uploads/2013/05/saccapitalstamford-260x173.jpg" alt="" title="saccapitalstamford" width="260" height="173" class="alignright size-medium wp-image-102764" />Remember Noah Freeman and Donald Longueuil? Former SAC Capital portfolio managers and best buds, fired from SAC for performance and later confronted by the Feds, who divided and conquered the duo by convincing Freeman to record his conversations with Longueuil, which didn't come of much until Noah got Don to give a step-by-step guide to destroying evidence of wrongdoing? Longueuil is set to be released from prison in December and Freeman, who once ran around San Francisco in his underwear while tripping on 'shrooms and shouting "I said buy, motherfucker" at no in particular, is awaiting sentencing. But before they put all this behind them and move on with their lives (Don is taking a three-week honeymoon in January; Noah has hundreds more cities to traipse through half-naked), how about one last trip down memory lane? This one is courtesy of Vanity Fair from a larger article about D&N's boss, and involves the kind of cover for their illegal activities that'd make Ping Jiang curse the fact that their time at SAC didn't overlap.

News

Tiger Asia's Founder Is Happy To Have Learned His Lesson Re: Wire Fraud And Insider Trading

Earlier today, Bill Hwang, the founder of the Tiger Cub's Asia-based branch, Tiger Asia, pleaded guilty to one count of wire fraud and agreed to fork over $44 million to make allegations by the SEC of insider trading in Chinese bank stocks go away. According to Hwang, his firm "regrets the actions for which is accepts responsibility today and is grateful that this matter is now resolved." According to SEC director of enforcement Robert Khuzami, who we would love to consider a side job writing fables for children* about foxes who trade on unreleased information about clinical trials of Alzheimer's drugs and take advantage of innocent hens, Hwang was a very bad boy and should serve as a cautionary tale for anyone thinking about breaking the law.

News

Law Firm Employee Misjudged The Coast Being Clear Re: Relaunching His Insider Trading Career

News

Sell-Side Analyst Who Passed Inside Information To SAC Employee, Who In Turn Traded On It On The Firm's Behalf (Without Steve Cohen's Knowledge Or Approbation*) Is Arrested

News

David Slaine, Government's Undercover "Tip-Mining Machine," Apparently Under The Impression Insider Trading Works On A 3-Strike Basis

Remember David Slaine? For those who need a refresher, he is the former Morgan Stanley managing director and ex-Galleon trader who began working as an FBI informant in 2007 and who was outed for doing so by the Wall Street Journal in January 2010. At the time, we learned a few notable things about Slaine, some of them germane to his role in helping the government go after people trading on material non-public information, others special in their own way, like: 1. He takes french fries, and perhaps all snacks, very seriously. In 1993, Slaine triggered a fist-fight with a colleague on the trading floor after needling him because he wouldn’t share his french fries. Others broke up the fight. 2. He doesn't wait for people to towel off and get dressed before knocking their teeth out. One morning early in 2001, before trading began, Gary Rosenbach, then was the No. 2 executive under Mr. Rajaratnam, and Slaine were in a steam room together after exercising at an Equinox Fitness Club. Mr. Rosenbach was pressuring Mr. Slaine to improve his performance. As Mr. Rosenbach lay on his back on a bench, Mr. Slaine punched him, giving him a black eye and ending their friendship. 3. Humans aren't the only ones often asked "you want a piece of me?" He once smashed a computer keyboard in a fit of rage, says a person familiar with the incident. 4. While working on Wall Street, he eschewed the traditional channels of employee recruitment (Wharton, etc), preferring instead to pick up fresh analysts at the club. While at Morgan Stanley, he met [Craig] Drimal, then a nightclub bouncer at the Vertical Club in Manhattan. The two quickly formed a friendship based on a shared passion for weight lifting and their mutual ability to bench-press 400 pounds...Shortly after arriving at Galleon, Mr. Slaine persuaded Galleon officials to give a position to Mr. Drimal, who then was working as a bouncer at the Roxy nightclub in Manhattan. 5. Being a person with whom he "formed a friendship based on a shared passion for weight lifting and [a] mutual ability to bench-press 400 pounds," possibly the greatest line written about anyone who's ever worked on Wall Street and which which cannot be said enough, means little in the long run if he knows you've been playing it fast and loose with securites laws. In July 2007, the FBI showed up at Mr. Slaine's door on W. 57th Street in Manhattan and confronted him. Mr. Slaine agreed to help the government. At the time, federal prosecutors in Manhattan were trying to make headway on another investigation that eventually led to the charges involving Galleon. They asked Mr. Slaine who he knew that might be participating in insider trading. Mr. Slaine's answer: his friend Mr. Drimal, according to people familiar with the matter. In September 2007, Mr. Slaine—identified in the complaint as CS-1—tried out his body wire for the first time, meeting Mr. Drimal in New York. During the meeting, Mr. Drimal gave Mr. Slaine a piece of paper with four stock symbols, according to the complaint. He told Mr. Slaine the four companies were all acquisition targets. At the meeting's end, Mr. Drimal told Mr. Slaine to destroy the list. He warned him to "be careful" in trading the securities because no news of the takeovers had surfaced publicly...After the meeting, Mr. Slaine went to a nearby hotel where an FBI agent was waiting, says a person familiar with the matter. The pair went to a room where Mr. Slaine removed the wire. Anyway, Bloomberg recently checked in to see what Slaine's been up to these last couple years and other than his "multi-year experience" with the FBI being "tremendously traumatic," he seems to be doing pretty well.

News

Maybe Accused Insider Trader Timothy McGee Thought Intel Obtained In AA Meetings Got A Free Pass Under Securities Laws?

Pop quiz: you're an insider trader looking to score some fresh intel. You've exhausted all of your sources and what's more, you're sick of just hitting them up for tips-- you want to make obtaining material non-public information fun again. You figure the best way to go about that is to identify a target with obvious vulnerabilities that can be exploited for profit (always a good time). Do you a) go with the Danielle Chiesi move (i.e. requesting info post or, better yet, mid-coitus) b) get ordained as a Catholic priest and press penitents for potential market moving news during confession or c) go for broke: start attending AA meetings, become someone's sponsor and then, when he/she's confiding in you that the stress of his/her job at a certain company has been driving him/her to down a bottle of vodka every night, move in for the kill? If you're Timothy J. McGee, the answer is simple. The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two financial advisors and three others in their circle of family and friends with insider trading for more than $1.8 million in illicit profits based on confidential information about a Philadelphia-based insurance holding company’s merger negotiations with a Japanese firm. The SEC alleges that Timothy J. McGee and Michael W. Zirinsky, who are registered representatives at Ameriprise Financial Services, illegally traded in the stock of Philadelphia Consolidated Holding Corp. (PHLY) based on nonpublic information about the company’s impending merger with Tokio Marine Holdings. McGee obtained the inside information from a PHLY senior executive who was confiding in him through their relationship at Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) about pressures he was confronting at work. McGee then purchased PHLY stock in advance of the merger announcement on July 23, 2008, and made a $292,128 profit when the stock price jumped 64 percent that day. “McGee stole information shared with him in the utmost confidence, and as securities industry professionals he and Zirinsky clearly knew better,” said Elaine C. Greenberg, Associate Director of the SEC’s Philadelphia Regional Office. “As this case demonstrates, we will follow each link in a tipping chain all the way to Hong Kong if necessary.” From the complaint: In early July 2008, immediately after an AA meeting, the Insider confined to McGee that he had been drinking as a result of the mounting pressure, and revealed to McGee that the source of the pressure was ongoing confidential negotiations to sell PHLY. The Insider told McGee that the stress generated from his participation in the negotiations was having a negative impact on his personal life. In response, McGee expressed interest in the details of the PHLY sale and questioned the Insider about the details fo the impending deal. SEC Charges Five With Insider Trading on Confidential Merger Negotiations Between Philadelphia Company and Japanese Firm [SEC]

Put it up for sale! By AgnosticPreachersKid (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons
News

The Next Time Leon Cooperman (Allegedly) Engages In Insider Trading, You Can Be Damn Sure It'll Be In Shares Of A Company Whose Execs Will Lie To The SEC For Him

God damn corporate hacks and their need to honest with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

News

SEC Loses $5.7 Million in Fines Against Croatian Seamstress in Goldman Insider Trading Scheme

A retired Croatian seamstress, who allowed her nephew, a former Goldman Sachs analyst, to make illegal insider trades through her brokerage account, has won the reversal of a $5.7 million penalty she owed to the Securities and Exchange Commission because she sent her response to the allegations to the wrong address.