New York (HedgeCo.Net) – A father and son in New York have been charged with conducting a serial insider trading scheme involving tips of key nonpublic information in coded e-mail messages disguised as discussions about golf. The scheme generated approximately $1.1 million in illicit proceeds in a four-year period.

Among examples of e-mail text using golf terminology were “saw local story about high cost of golf reservations since a foreign company purchased all- even more expensive than imagined” and “might have an opportunity to play golf- but would need to book the reservation as soon as the office opens Tuesday morning.”

The SEC alleges that Sean R. Stewart, currently a managing director at a prominent investment bank, routinely tipped his father Robert K. Stewart with confidential information about future mergers and acquisitions involving clients of two investment banks where he has worked during the past few years. The elder Stewart, a certified public accountant and CFO of a technology company, cashed in on the tips by placing and directing highly profitable securities trades ahead of at least a half-dozen merger and acquisition announcements.

“Serial insider traders assume a huge risk that we will detect their pattern of trading and connect them to their source of confidential information,” said Daniel M. Hawke, Chief of the Division of Enforcement’s Market Abuse Unit. “We have integrated new technological tools to quickly and easily identify relationships among traders and spot suspicious trading across multiple securities.”

Alex Akesson
Editor for HedgeCo.net
alex@hedgeco.net
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