So the SEC claims they found $1.7M in insider trading, and they only collect $700K. This assumes the ring didn't do more.
No wonder bigger players do this in size. What a joke.
Nothing has been collected. This is a complaint [1] being put to court demanding a jury trial. The § 21A civil monetary penalties are in addition to "further relief as the Court deems appropriate," which is legal speak for we don't know how to divvy up the gains just yet but want to put specific dollar fines in the complaint attached to each defendant. (The SEC doesn't put people in jail. The DoJ is conducting its criminal investigation, which takes more time for obvious reasons.)
There is a stark difference between financial professionals and laypeople in terms of how they judge the risk of getting caught for insider trading and the scale of the punishment that comes with it.
[1] https://www.sec.gov/litigation/complaints/2021/comp-pr2021-1...
Wylam has consented to a permanent injunction with civil penalties, if any, to be decided later by the court. The SEC’s litigation against Brown is continuing.
In parallel proceedings, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of California today announced related criminal charges against Brown, Wylam, and Sood.
The rationale behind the decision was that disgorgement imposed joint and several liability rather than individual liabiity, and that disgorgement didn't take into account business expenses incurred in acquiring the illegally acquired income...
So now, the SEC has to determine disgorgement sanctions on a per-defendant basis, rather than assessing it as a single joint amount and making the wrong-doers go after each other for reimbursements.
Note though that the $700k are just the fines, not the disgorgement sanction, which will presumably be issued soon. (The $700k penalties are not treated as deductible expenses, so they're effectively on top of whatever disgorgement is ordered.)
Thank goodness it didn't go the way I thought it did for a second there.
Meanwhile someone stealing a pack of chewing gum from a convenience store might get shot, and someone stealing a $500 TV could wind up serving hard time in a prison where they might get raped, tortured, or murdered.
SEC went after the new money
> No wonder bigger players do this in size. What a joke.
Not sure who you mean by that. SEC is all over every major player.