Co-Sponsored by the Lowell Milken Institute

Organized by the UCLA Law Review and Professors James Park, Stephen Bainbridge, Iman Anabtawi, and Sung Hui Kim

In the wake of the financial crisis of 2008, federal prosecutors and the S.E.C. successfully brought dozens of insider trading cases in what is the most significant period of insider trading enforcement since the passage of the federal securities laws. This conference, Defining the Boundaries of Insider Trading, will convene leading practitioners and academics to assess these prosecutions and their impact on the law of insider trading. Various panels will discuss insider trading enforcement in light of its implications for the future of insider trading doctrine, corporate compliance, and academic theories of insider trading. One focal point of the conference will be the Second Circuit’s recent and controversial decision in U.S. v. Newman, which overturned convictions of hedge fund managers who traded on inside information without knowing its precise source. The Second Circuit ruled that a defendant who receives inside information from a tipper must know that the tipper received a personal benefit by divulging the information. Defenders of this decision argue that such a knowledge requirement is mandated by Supreme Court precedent rooting insider trading liability in the receipt of a personal benefit. Critics argue that the decision allows those who trade on inside information to escape liability by remaining ignorant of the precise origin of the information. In bringing together leading experts on insider trading, the conference organizers hope to help generate ideas and scholarship that will aid courts and policymakers in defining the scope of the prohibition of insider trading.

Our distinguished panelists included:

Stephen Bainbridge, William D. Warren Professor of Law, UCLA Law School
James Bowman, Partner, O’Melveny & Myers; Former Deputy Chief, Major Frauds Section, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Central District of California
Michael Guttentag, Professor of Law, John T. Gurash Fellow in Corp. Law & Business, Loyola Law School
Sung Hui Kim, Professor of Law, UCLA School of Law
Michele Wein Layne, Regional Director of the SEC’s Los Angeles Regional Office
Donna Nagy, C. Ben Dutton Professor of Law, Indiana University Maurer School of Law
Richard Painter, S. Walter Richey Professor of Corporate Law, University of Minnesota Law School
Adam Pritchard, Frances and George Skestos Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
Lorin Reisner, Partner, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison; Former SEC Deputy Director of Enforcement; Former Chief of the Criminal Division, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
Anjan Sahni, Partner, Wilmer Hale; Former Chief of the Securities and Commodities Fraud Task Force, U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York
Yesha Yadav, Associate Professor of Law, Vanderbilt Law School