The Securities and Exchange Commission is asking a federal judge to sustain a $1.6 million insider-trading judgment against an insurance broker.
The broker, Peter Doffing, was ordered to pay the penalty in June after a jury found that he had made half a million dollars on the stock market after receiving a tip that pharmaceutical firm Chattem was about to be acquired by life sciences company SanofiSA. But Doffing has appealed the judgment, saying that the evidence presented during trial didn’t meet the standard required to prove insider trading.
In the original case, the SEC claimed that a board member at Chattem told accountant Thomas Melvin that the company was in acquisition talks. Although the board member told Melvin the information was not for dissemination, Melvin allegedly went on to tell three clients, including Doffing.
Doffing has refused to take responsibility for the trade, and now argues that the government didn’t present sufficient evidence to convict him.
The SEC disagreed. The agency’s lawyers said in a court filing that Doffing merely argued that his friend didn’t explicitly say that SanofiSA was buying Chattem.
“There are no ‘magic’ words that a witness must say in order for a jury to find that there was a tip,” the SEC said. “Instead, a jury can base its verdict solely on circumstantial evidence that inside information was shared. In this case, however, the Commission offered direct evidence that Mr. Doffing was provided inside information.”
