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Investor Lawyers BlogEx-Oppenheimer Broker Pleads Guilty in Insider Trading Case
David Hobson, an ex-Oppenheimer & Co (OPY) investment adviser, has pleaded guilty to the criminal charges of securities fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The 47-year-old Rhode Island broker admitted that he engaged in insider trading using information given to him by investment client Michael Maciocio in order to make illegal profits. Maciocio has already pleaded guilty to the charges in the insider trading case against him.
According to Preet Bharara, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, between 5/2008 to 4/2014 Hobson and Maciocio sought to trade on insider information regarding acquisitions that a particular pharmaceutical company was considering. Although Bharara’s release doesn’t name the company, Law360 identified the company as Pfizer Inc. Bharara said that Maciocio, who was master planner in Pfizer’s active pharmaceutical ingredient supply chain group, would find out about the upcoming acquisitions and tip Hobson.
Bharara’s statement said that even though Maciocio was not given access to the acquisitions that the pharmaceutical company was targeting, he would use the code name of the acquisition, the drug indication, the dose, the clinical trial phase, and/or the drug’s chemical structure to find out the name of the company that Pfizer was considering acquiring. Maciocio would trade based on this information and share the information with Hobson. The two men have been friends since childhood.