A former U.S. bank compliance examiner pleaded guilty to trading on confidential information that he acquired in the course of his employment at the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
The U.S. attorney’s office of the Eastern District of Virginia reported that Robert Brian Thompson, who worked as a bank examiner and senior manager at the Richmond Fed, pleaded guilty to one count of insider trading and one count of making false statements.
According to court filings, between October 2020 and February of this year, Thompson misappropriated confidential information, including information about banks’ supervisory reviews, and then traded on that information.
“In total, Thompson executed 69 trades in seven different publicly traded financial institutions for approximately US$771,678 in personal profits,” the U.S. attorney’s office reported.
In addition to the illegal insider trading, Thompson also admitted to making false filings to the Fed, which claimed that he didn’t trade in any bank stocks.
Thompson is scheduled to be sentenced on March 19, 2025.