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Arise, you have nothing to lose but your barbed wire fences!

1996-06-04 - Re: Saw this on CNN: Anonymous Stock tips over IRC as bad???

Header Data

From: Jeff Barber <jeffb@sware.com>
To: unicorn@schloss.li (Black Unicorn)
Message Hash: db68719d3147aed011433d745c0cf735b08fa5149a49ccb8f99e7732f5679a71
Message ID: <199606031918.PAA15670@jafar.sware.com>
Reply To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960603150424.8479C-100000@polaris>
UTC Datetime: 1996-06-04 02:07:26 UTC
Raw Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 10:07:26 +0800

Raw message

From: Jeff Barber <jeffb@sware.com>
Date: Tue, 4 Jun 1996 10:07:26 +0800
To: unicorn@schloss.li (Black Unicorn)
Subject: Re: Saw this on CNN: Anonymous Stock tips over IRC as bad???
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SUN.3.91.960603150424.8479C-100000@polaris>
Message-ID: <199606031918.PAA15670@jafar.sware.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


Black Unicorn writes:

> Incorrect.
> The deciding factor is the court's determiniation of whether the 
> information was "material non-public information."  As the question of 
> materiality is vague, subjective and subject to whim, even a low level 
> employee is risking time and fines.  Often materiality has exactly zero 
> to do with what effect it may have on stock price.
> 
> There is a simple solution to avoiding liability.  Don't trade in your 
> own company's stock.
> 
> You make the case that it is somehow shocking to think that an employee 
> wouldn't be able to buy stock in their employer.  Such restrictions have 
> existed for decades.  Why are you so stunned?

I trust it won't stun you to find that many, many large and even small
corporations -- including my current employer [*NOT* SecureWare, BTW,
despite the email address] -- actually encourage their employees to buy
stock by offering stock purchase plans as a benefit of employment.  They
even make it convenient by deducting purchases from one's paycheck.

Presumably then, we ordinary employees are so in-the-dark that any
non-public information we do hold is considered non-material?

So perhaps Tim over-simplified by saying that there were no limits on
what ordinary employees could do.  OTOH, it seems that Perry also
over-simplified by flatly stating that Tim's trades while an Intel
employee were "illegal".


-- Jeff

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