Source: https://blogs.orrick.com/securities-litigation/tag/u-s-v-newman/
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 12:20:37+00:00

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Last Wednesday, former SAC Capital Advisors manager Mathew Martoma lost a bid to overturn his 2014 insider trading conviction in the Second Circuit. United States v. Martoma, No. 14-3599, 2017 WL 3611518 (2d Cir. Aug. 23, 2017). Martoma, the latest in a string of important insider trading decisions, is significant because the Second Circuit departed from the “relationship test” that had been central to Second Circuit insider trading cases in recent years. See United States v. Newman, 773 F.3d 438 (2d Cir. 2014). The departure was based on a 2016 Supreme Court decision, Salman v. U.S., in which the Court rejected the “relationship test” as set forth in Newman, and reaffirmed the standard set in Dirks v. SEC, 463 U.S. 646, 103 S. Ct. 3255, 77 L. Ed. 2d 911 (1983), holding that where a close relationship exists between the tipper and tippee, the government is not required to show that the insider received a benefit of a “pecuniary or similarly valuable nature.” Martoma had appealed his conviction before Salman was issued, and relied heavily on the Second Circuit’s relationship test outlined in Newman.
In Newman, the Second Circuit overturned the insider trading convictions of two portfolio managers who were “remote tippees,” individuals who traded on inside information but with one or more layers of individuals between them and the insider who originally provided the information. The insiders in Newman were friends with the tippees but did not gain any personal benefit in exchange for the information provided. The government argued in that case that it only needed to show that the tippees traded on “material, nonpublic information they knew insiders had disclosed in breach of a duty of confidentiality.” However, the Second Circuit rejected that argument, explaining that the government was required to show that the insider shared confidential information in exchange for a personal benefit, and that the remote tippees were aware of that fact. The Second Circuit also held that where there is no quid pro quo exchange for confidential information given by a tipper to a tippee, such information only amounts to a “personal benefit” when the tipper has a “meaningfully close personal relationship” with the tippee. To meet the test, that relationship must “generat[e] an exchange that is objective, consequential, and represents at least a potential gain of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature.” (Emphasis added.) Essentially, if there was no potential for financial gain resulting from the gift of information, no personal benefit existed under Newman. In the immediate aftermath of Newman, many insider trading prosecutions within the Second Circuit became untenable and were dropped.
The fall-out from the Second Circuit’s decision in U.S. v. Newman continued last week in SEC v. Payton, when Southern District of New York Judge Jed S. Rakoff denied a motion to dismiss an SEC civil enforcement action against two former brokers, Daryl Payton and Benjamin Durant, one of whom (Payton) had just had his criminal plea for the same conduct reversed in light of Newman. Although the United States may be unable to make criminal charges stick against some alleged insider traders under a standard of “willfulness,” Judge Rakoff found that the SEC had sufficiently alleged that related conduct of the two brokers at the end of the tip line was “reckless,” satisfying the SEC’s lower civil standard.
Last week, a New York federal judge struck another blow to prosecutorial efforts to secure insider trading convictions in tipper-tippee cases. As discussed in detail here, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York suffered a high-profile defeat in an insider trading case last month, when the Second Circuit issued its decision in U.S. v. Newman, No. 13-1837, 2014 WL 6911278 (2d Cir. Dec. 10, 2014). In Newman, the Second Circuit found that prosecutors in tipper-tippee cases must prove both that the tipper (the individual disclosing inside information in breach of a duty) received a personal benefit in exchange for the disclosure, and that the tippee (the individual receiving and trading on the information) knew about the tipper’s receipt of that benefit. In the wake of Newman, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and others expressed concerns that the decision could limit future insider trading prosecutions.
On December 10, 2014, the Second Circuit issued an important decision (U.S. v. Newman, No. 13-1837, 2014 WL 6911278 (2d Cir. Dec. 10, 2014)) that will make it more difficult in that Circuit for prosecutors, and most likely the SEC, to prevail on a “tippee” theory of insider trading liability. Characterizing the government’s recent tippee insider trading prosecutions as “novel” in targeting “remote tippees many levels removed from corporate insiders,” the court reversed the convictions of two investment fund managers upon concluding that the lower court gave erroneous jury instructions and finding insufficient evidence to sustain the convictions. The court held, contrary to the government’s position, that tippee liability requires that the tippee trade on information he or she knows to have been disclosed by the tipper: (i) in violation of a fiduciary duty, and (ii) in exchange for a meaningful personal benefit. Absent such knowledge, the tippee is not liable for trading on the information.

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