Abandoning the Personal Benefit Requirement in Insider Trading Law
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University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform Volume 50 2016 No More Quid Pro Quo: Abandoning the Personal Benefit Requirement in Insider Trading Law Shannon Seiferth University of Michigan Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjlr Part of the Courts Commons, Legislation Commons, Securities Law Commons, and the Supreme Court of the United States Commons Recommended Citation Shannon Seiferth, No More Quid Pro Quo: Abandoning the Personal Benefit Requirement in Insider Trading Law, 50 U. MICH. J. L. REFORM 175 (2016). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjlr/vol50/iss1/4 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform at University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform by an authorized editor of University of Michigan Law School Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NO MORE QUID PRO QUO: ABANDONING THE PERSONAL BENEFIT REQUIREMENT IN INSIDER TRADING LAW Shannon Seiferth* ABSTRACT A circuit split between the Second Circuit’s 2014 decision, United States v. New- man, and the Ninth Circuit’s 2015 decision, United States v. Salman, illustrates problems in insider trading law dating back over thirty years to the Supreme Court’s decision in Dirks v. SEC. Dirks held that when a corporate insider provides information to an outside party who then trades on the information, it must be shown that the insider received some form of a personal benefit for providing the information in order to impute liability. The courts in Newman and Salman dis- agreed on the sort of evidence that suffices to prove such a personal benefit. As this question is set to be decided by the Supreme Court, these cases provide an apt oppor- tunity for reexamining the law of insider trading. Although it might be argued that, for both moral and efficiency reasons, the courts in Newman and Salman reached the right outcome, the analysis in both decisions was strained as a result of the personal benefit requirement first articu- lated in Dirks. As this Note discusses, this split demonstrates that proof of a personal benefit as an element of insider trading in tipper/tippee cases should not be required, as it creates unnecessarily subjective inquiries into the relationship between the tipper and tippee, resulting in confusion in the boundaries of permissi- ble trading activity. Because insider trading walks a fine line between behavior that should be encouraged (the use of information for legitimate business purposes) and discouraged (exploiting information obtained by virtue of an inside position for personal gain), it is important to more clearly define the bounds of insider trading activity. In place of requiring proof of a personal benefit, this Note argues that a wholly new statutory approach to insider trading is warranted and offers an alter- native statutory proposal that may serve as a starting point for a discussion of adopting legislation. INTRODUCTION The Second Circuit’s 2014 decision in United States v. Newman1 became one of the most significant insider trading cases in recent * J.D. Candidate, University of Michigan Law School, December 2016; B.A., University of Michigan, 2012. I would like to thank Professor Adam C. Pritchard for many helpful discussions and insights and my fellow Journal of Law Reform editors for their invaluable feedback. 1. United States v. Newman, 773 F.3d 438 (2d Cir. 2014), cert. denied, 136 S. Ct. 242 (2015). 175 176 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform [VOL. 50:1 years, resulting in prompt backlash from the media,2 an appeal to the Supreme Court,3 two legislative proposals to overhaul insider trading law,4 and a Ninth Circuit decision, United States v. Salman, explicitly declining to follow the holding of Newman.5 The key dis- pute between the courts in Newman and Salman dates back to the Supreme Court’s 1983 decision in Dirks v. SEC, which held that when a corporate insider provides information to an outside party who then trades on the information, it must be shown that the in- sider received some form of a personal benefit for providing the information in order to constitute insider trading.6 While Newman interpreted this element to require proof that the insider received a benefit greater than an ephemeral friendship,7 Salman held that ev- idence of a friendship or close family relationship might be sufficient to satisfy the personal benefit element.8 Though New- man’s requirement of a tangible benefit attempts to escape subjective inquiries into the closeness of a relationship, it could leave morally reprehensible trading behavior unchecked. The Supreme Court granted certiorari in Salman to the question of whether proof of an objective personal benefit, which “repre- sents at least a potential gain of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature,” is needed to establish insider trading.9 Oral argument took place October 5, 2016 and a ruling will be issued by June 2017.10 Even if the Court adopts the defendant’s view that insider trading should require proof of an objective personal benefit, these cases provide an apt opportunity for reexamining the law of insider trading. The dispute between the Second and Ninth Circuits in Newman and Salman is emblematic of larger fissures in the law of insider 2. See Greg Stohr & Patricia Hurtado, Insider Trading Cases Imperiled as U.S. Supreme Court Spurns Appeal, BLOOMBERG (Oct. 5, 2015, 9:31 AM), http://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti cles/2015-10-05/insider-trading-cases-imperiled-as-top-u-s-court-spurns-appeal. 3. Lyle Denniston, U.S. Appeals Major Insider Trading Case, SCOTUSBLOG (July 30, 2015), http://www.scotusblog.com/2015/07/u-s-appeals-major-insider-trading-case/. 4. Peter J. Henning, Court Strikes on Insider Trading, and Congress Lobs Back, N.Y. TIMES: DEALBOOK (Mar. 16, 2015), http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/17/business/dealbook/ court-strikes-on-insider-trading-and-congress-lobs-back.html?_r=0. 5. United States v. Salman, 792 F.3d 1087, 1093 (9th Cir. 2015), cert. granted, 136 S. Ct. 899. 6. Dirks v. SEC, 463 U.S. 646, 662–63 (1983). 7. 773 F.3d 438, 452 (2d Cir. 2014), cert denied, 136 S. Ct. 242 (2015). 8. 792 F.3d at 1093–94. 9. Petition for Writ of Certiorari at *i, Salman v. United States, No. 15-628, 2015 WL 7180648 (Sup. Ct. Nov. 10, 2015). 10. Nate Raymond, US Top Court Leans Toward Making Insider Trading Prosecutions Easier, REUTERS (Oct. 5, 2016, 3:32 PM), http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-insidertrad ing-idUSKCN12510B. FALL 2016] No More Quid Pro Quo 177 trading. Because insider trading prohibitions currently rest on a vaguely-worded, catch-all anti-fraud prohibition, insider trading law has been shaped almost exclusively through the courts.11 The per- sonal benefit requirement arose out of the Supreme Court’s belief that an insider must have breached a fiduciary duty in order to have committed insider trading. Nevertheless, subsequent decisions eroded the strict reliance on this framework,12 but still tried to op- erate within the confines of Supreme Court jurisprudence requiring breach of a fiduciary duty. Because any judicial reform would have to adhere to this fiduciary duty framework (or overrule thirty-year-old precedent), this Note argues that the best vehicle for reforming insider trading law is a statutory approach. A more pre- cisely worded statute would help clarify many of the contours of the insider trading prohibition that have created controversy and confusion. Part I outlines the moral and economic underpinnings for in- sider trading law and examines the development of insider trading law through precedent. Part II discusses the division between the courts in Newman and Salman, drawing three key observations that demonstrate the need for a new approach to insider trading law. Part III advocates for a legislative response, critiques two different legislative proposals to codify insider trading, and offers an alterna- tive statutory proposal that may serve as a starting point for a discussion of adopting legislation. PART I: HISTORY OF INSIDER TRADING LAW The development of insider trading law over time represents a tension between the desire for both broad and narrow liability, flex- ibility and predictability, and fairness and efficiency. The current scope of insider trading law has broadly expanded from the strict fiduciary duty requirements articulated in early cases, but this ex- pansion comes at the expense of clarity in the law. 11. See Jorge Pesok, Insider Trading: No Longer Reserved for Insiders, 14 FLA. ST. U. BUS. REV. 109, 110 (2015). 12. See Donna M. Nagy, Insider Trading and the Gradual Demise of Fiduciary Principles, 94 IOWA L. REV. 1315, 1320 (2009); Stephen M. Bainbridge, Regulating insider trading in the post- fiduciary duty era: equal access or property rights?, in RESEARCH HANDBOOK ON INSIDER TRADING 80 (Stephen M. Bainbridge & William D. Warren eds., 2013); Sung Hui Kim, Insider Trading as Private Corruption, 61 UCLA L. REV. 928, 940–41 (2014). 178 University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform [VOL. 50:1 A. Insider Trading Law Within the Broader Securities Regime Securities regulation, broadly speaking, is primarily aimed at pro- tecting investors by reducing informational disadvantages investors suffer at the expense of corporate insiders and other market profes- sionals.13 These laws seek to protect investors through two chief means—promoting the disclosure of information,14 which provides investors with similar access to information as insiders, and deter- ring fraud,15 so that investors may not be taken advantage of by other market participants.