Apparently these things are viewed as a bigger deal than Flávio Roberto de Souza previously thought.

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]

Richard Choo-Beng Lee will wait.

Apparently that joyride was more than a little frowned upon.

And for this he should do time? Gautham Shankar, of New Canaan, Connecticut, who also worked as a trader at Schottenfeld Group LLC, is scheduled to be sentenced later today by U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan in New York. Shankar, who faces as long as 25 years in prison, earned less than $450,000 in the insider-trading scheme, his lawyer said. Shankar, who worked on the sales desk at Goldman Sachs from July 2000 until February 2003, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and a count of securities fraud in October 2009. He admitted that while working at Schottenfeld, he passed and profited from illegal tips he obtained from Zvi Goffer, a former Galleon Group LLC employee, and Thomas Hardin, a former analyst at Lanexa Global Management. “As the government learned during its meetings with Mr. Shankar, he has always, quite literally, given large sums of money away to the homeless on the streets of New York, including cash given to him by his co-conspirators for passing tips from Hardin,” his lawyer, Frederick Sosinsky, said in court papers.Helped People “From bringing the homeless a cup of coffee in the morning and sharing time with them to handing them hundreds of dollars at a time, Mr. Shankar has always been unable to simply walk past those in the most distress,” Sosinsky said. Ex-Goldman Employee Seeks Leniency for Insider Scheme [Bloomberg]

Shortly before losing his patience and wondering aloud what the hell she was good for if not bringing him hot tips. FBI informant Roomy Khan, 53, told jury that she gleaned illegal tips on Polycom’s earnings from Sunil Bhalla, a former Polycom exec who was placed on leave in 2009. She then passed those tips to Whitman [Capital founder Doug Whitman] and a handful of other hedgie pals, including convicted Galleon Group co-founder Raj Rajaratnam and her bosses at Trivium Capital Management...“You know what would make you feel better?” Whitman asked Khan when she started complaining about her lot in life. “Calling Sunil and getting a good call on Polycom and being able to short it.” “Yeah, but I could go to jail for doing that, too,” Khan said. “You’re not going to be a slimeball, what do I want to talk to you for,” Whitman said. Roomy Not Slimy [NYP]

ISDA decided today that there has been no credit event for purposes of Greek CDS. Obvs! And by "obvs!" I mean what I said the other day, which is that with 100% certainty there's been no credit event yet, but with 100% certainty there will be, so everyone should just chill out. Except that it seems like that last part may be wrong. So go ahead and panic. I used to make convertible bonds and some of my time was spent answering questions about what happened to things upon Events. The most popular was: what happens after a merger? If you have a convertible that converts into 10 shares of XYZ stock, but now XYZ is being acquired and each share of XYZ is being acquired for $30 in cash and 4.5 shares of PQR stock and a pony - what happens to the convertible? And the answer I would give usually started with "don't trouble your pretty little head about it." Like, it's fine: you have a convertible that converts into 10 Things, and before the merger each Thing was an XYZ share, and after each Thing is exactly what an XYZ share transformed into, so you convert into $300 and 45 PQR shares and 10 ponies. It just works because it has to work. Economic interests follow without interruption from changes in form; derivative securities poof into derivatives of things that the underlying poofs into. There is no arbitrage! That assumption is central to doing any sort of derivative work, and it spoiled me a bit. Sometimes people would come up with more complicated scenarios involving dividends, multiple-step transactions, weird splits and spinoffs and sales, etc. etc. And I would generally start from the bias "it has to work, so I am sure the document written in the way that works." Where "works" means "the economics and intent of the trade are preserved after the change in form." But of course the document was written by humans, often specifically me, and those humans, often including me, are fallible. So there may well be documents from my former line of work that don't "work" in the sense that an issuer could do some structural tricks that would screw holders out of their economics - where the derivative doesn't follow the underlying everywhere it might go. These tricks are unlikely enough that I don't lose sleep over them. You can't predict everything. I sort of assumed that Greek CDS also had to just work but here is Felix Salmon at Reuters saying no. Lisa Pollack at FT Alphaville said something similar a week ago but I could not fathom that she meant it so I read it to mean something else. But she means it, and Felix does too. Go read it but the basic gist of this theory is: