July 11, 2022
SEC Enforcement: SEC v. Mark Cuban Redux?
Last week, the SEC announced the filing of an insider trading enforcement proceeding with allegations that sounded very familiar:
The SEC’s complaint, filed in federal district court in the District of Columbia, alleges that in January 2020, NTRP invited Haywood to participate in a registered direct offering of shares. Before being told about the offering, Haywood expressly agreed not to trade on the material, nonpublic information he was about to receive. Notwithstanding this agreement, after receiving information about the offering, Haywood immediately sold more than 100,000 shares of NTRP stock. As alleged in the complaint, NTRP’s stock price dropped nearly 50 percent after the offering was announced. The complaint alleges that Haywood avoid losses of approximately $179,297.
Those allegations – trading after agreeing to keep information about a pending offering confidential – are exactly the same as those brought in the SEC’s complaint against Mark Cuban. That one didn’t go so well for the agency & it will be interesting to see if it fares better in this case.
– John Jenkins