Back to the Future: Criminal Insider Trading Under Title 18

July 9, 2018

In recent decades, the government has brought charges for illegal insider trading primarily under the securities laws, chiefly Section 10 of the Securities Exchange Act and Rule 10b-5. In this article, we discuss the recent SDNY prosecution in United States v. Blaszczak et al., in which the government charged insider trading schemes in violation of not only Rule 10b-5 but also Section 1348 of Title 18. We discuss the implications of the outcome at trial: acquittals on the Rule 10b-5 charges but convictions on the Section 1348 charges – even though the charges related to the same securities trading.