Jury sides with SEC in trial over insider trading charges against former pharma executive
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A U.S. district court jury has found a former pharmaceutical company executive liable for insider trading allegations brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
After an eight day trial and several hours of deliberation, a jury issued the verdict in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Friday.
The case involves charges brought by the SEC on August 17, 2021 against Matthew Panuwat, a former head of business development at a Calif.-based biopharmaceutical firm called Medivation.
The SEC alleged that Panuwat carried out insider trading ahead of an announcement by Medivation that it would be acquired by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (PFE).
“As we’ve said all along, there was nothing novel about this matter, and the jury agreed: this was insider trading, pure and simple,” Gurbir Grewal, SEC’s division of enforcement director, said in a statement on Friday.
“Defendant used highly confidential information about an impending announcement of the acquisition of biopharmaceutical company Medivation, Inc., the company where he worked, by Pfizer Inc. (PFE) to trade ahead of the news for his own enrichment,” Grewal said.
“Rather than buying the securities of Medivation, however, Panuwat used his employer’s confidential information to acquire a large stake in call options of another comparable public company, Incyte Corporation (INCY), whose share price increased materially on the important news,” Grewal added.
The SEC in the 2021 complaint alleged that Panuwat’s insider trading “generated illicit profits” of nearly $110K.
The case is Securities and Exchange Commission vs. Matthew Panuwat, 4:21-cv-06322, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California (San Francisco Division).
