Civil Insider Trading in Personal Networks

This Article, together with a predecessor companion article on&nbsp;criminal friends-and-family insider trading activity, is designed to&nbsp;provide data-driven groundwork for the study of U.S. insider trading&nbsp;violations involving personal—rather than business—relationships.&nbsp;Specifically, the Article provides a preliminary report on insider&nbsp;trading in personal networks based on a proprietary data set that&nbsp;includes information culled from eleven years of public enforcement&nbsp;actions in which material nonpublic information was allegedly&nbsp;conveyed between or among people in friendships or familial&nbsp;relations.<br><br>To lay a foundation for the study of insider trading in personal&nbsp;networks, the Article proceeds first by describing relevant aspects of&nbsp;insider trading doctrine and enforcement as key elements of the U.S.&nbsp;legal landscape relevant to a study of civil insider trading in personal&nbsp;networks. Next, the Article explains the methodology used for&nbsp;identifying and categorizing information on friends-and-family&nbsp;insider trading obtained from public civil enforcement actions filed&nbsp;between 2008 and 2018. The Article then describes that information&nbsp;from two key vantage points: the types of relationships represented by&nbsp;the participants in the alleged insider trading and the gender of those&nbsp;participants. The Article closes with a conclusion that offers related&nbsp;observations and avenues for further study.&nbsp;