Canadians accused of accessing press releases for insider trading

The regulator says that the pair used this information to engage in hundreds of trades before corporate announcements were publicly available.

It says that Natividad’s trades resulted in net profits of approximately US$280,454, while Saini’s trades resulted in net profits of approximately $674,154.

“Employees who have access to confidential corporate information have a duty to safeguard that information and not misuse it for their personal benefit,” said Jeff Kehoe, director of enforcement at the OSC. “Illegal insider trading erodes investor confidence in our markets, and the OSC will continue to use all its tools to root out this type of misconduct and pursue bad actors.”

US charges

Meanwhile, the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has also charged the pair with insider trading amounting to US$1.6 million in net profits.

In the civil proceedings, it says that the duo accessed around 1,600 corporate press releases ahead of publication, used the information for trades and would routinely exit their positions when markets reacted to the information once it was made public.