S.E.C. Fines 4 for Trades Involving Dow Jones

Perez-PeÐ"±a, Richard, “S.E.C. Fines 4 for Trades Involving Dow Jones,” N.Y. Times, Feb. 6, 2008, p. C3.

This article is simply about the settlement of an illegal trade on Dow Jones due to the insider dealing between David K. P Li and Michael Leung Kai-Hung. Mr. Li, who is a former Dow Jones & Company director, told his friend, Mr. Leung about the News Corporation’s purchasing plan on Dow Jones before it was publicly announced. After knowing the inside story, Mr. Leung immediately purchased $15 million shares of Dow Jones with the help of his daughter and son-in-law and made a profit of $8.1 million.

The S.E.C then came up with a settlement that Mr. Li has to pay $8.1 million penalty even he did not get any benefit. And Mr. Leung agreed to return his $8.1 million profit and pay extra $8.1 million as a penalty of having this inside trading. Mr. Leung’s daughter and son-in-law are also ordered to turn over $40,000 illicit profit plus interest and pay extra $40,000 as penalty.

In this case, although no one admitted the wrongdoing, Mr. Li still breached his fiduciary duty to Dow Jones. As a member of Dow Jones, Mr. Li misappropriated the private information of the company. He was not supposed to tell anyone anything about the non-public information of the company. No matter he intended to tell or not, or no matter he benefited or not, he secretly relayed the information and breached his duty. And he indirectly caused the illicit profits of Leung’s family. Since it was illegal insider trading, Leung’s family of course has to return what they profited from it.