Huge Insider Trading Scandal

The Seattle Times ran an article today headlined White-collar ring cracked. The Associated Press article was authored by Larry Neumeister. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer also ran an article headlined Brokers at "top-tier" firms charged in trading scheme. The P-I's article was based on material by Bloomberg News writers Patricia Hurtado and David Scheer. Both articles describe how top tier Wall Street brokerage firms' employees stole millions of dollars over a period of five years through insider trading. The defendants included husband-and-wife lawyers, registered representatives, compliance personnel and hedge-fund portfolio managers. And the top tier companies? UBS Securities LLC and Morgan Stanley & Co., Inc.

This scandal is huge.

Here is a link to the US Securities and Exchange Commission's Litigation Release No. 20022 dated March 1, 2007. This release identifies the individuals and companies involved both upstream and downstream, and it describes the nature of the schemes involved.

Here is a link to the complaint filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York. The complaint names the defendants and their employers. Beginning on page 8, the complaint describes how each of the schemes worked.