Foreign traders accused of participating in a scheme to trade on inside information plundered from hacked newswires have agreed to pay US$30 million to settle the U.S. authorities’ case against them.
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced Monday that Ukraine-based firm, Jaspen Capital Partners Ltd., and its CEO, Andriy Supranonok, have agreed to settle allegations that they profited from trading on corporate information that was hacked from newswire services.
The SEC alleged that Jaspen and Supranonok made approximately US$25 million in illegal profits by buying and selling contracts-for-differences (CFDs) based on information contained in press releases that were stolen from newswire services. Without admitting or denying the allegations, Jaspen and Supranonok agreed to return US$30 million of allegedly ill-gotten gains. The settlement offers are subject to approval by the court.
Litigation continues against the other 32 defendants who were charged in the case back in August.
See: Hackers charged in multi-million dollar insider trading scheme
“Barely a month after we froze tens of millions of dollars in illegal profits from the defendants’ trading on illegal inside information obtained from hacked news releases, we obtained a settlement with foreign traders that deprives them of their wrongful gains,” said Andrew Ceresney, director of the SEC’s enforcement division, in a statement. “Today’s settlement demonstrates that even those beyond our borders who trade on stolen nonpublic information and use complex instruments in an attempt to avoid detection will ultimately be caught.”