SWISS TRADER SETTLES CHARGES OF INSIDER TRADING WITH SEC

The following insider trading case is an excerpt from the SEC web site:

"The United State Securities and Exchange Commission (“Commission”) today announced that on May 24, 2011, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York entered a Final Judgment as to the Defendant Giuseppe Tullio Abatemarco, a Swiss resident.

The Commission’s previously filed amended complaint, Securities and Exchange Commission v. Giuseppe Tullio Abatemarco, Civil Action No. 10 Civ. 9527 (WHP) (S.D.N.Y. filed April 20, 2011), alleges that Abatemarco engaged in illegal insider trading in connection with his purchase of the securities of Martek Biosciences Corporation, a Delaware corporation headquartered in Columbia, Maryland. Abatemarco, age 40, is a Swiss resident and insurance salesman. On December 21, 2010, Martek and Royal DSM, N.V., a Dutch company, announced that DSM would commence a cash tender offer to acquire all the outstanding shares of the common stock of Martek. The price of Martek stock rose 35% after the announcement. The amended complaint further alleges that in the days preceding the announcement, Abatemarco purchased 2,616 Martek call options based on material nonpublic information about the impending tender offer that he learned from a colleague who is the common-law wife of a DSM employee who was working on the tender offer. Abatemarco knew or should have known that the information was material and nonpublic. He stood to profit by about $1.2 million from the sale of the call options. On the Commission’s motion, the court froze the sale proceeds on December 22, 2010.

The amended complaint alleges that Abatemarco violated Sections 10(b) and 14(e) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 (“Exchange Act”) and Exchange Act Rules 10b-5 and 14e-3. The complaint seeks a permanent injunction, disgorgement with prejudgment interest civil money penalties.

Abatemarco has consented, without admitting or denying the allegations in the amended complaint, to the entry of a proposed final judgment: (1) permanently enjoining him from violating Sections 10(b) and 14(e) of the Exchange Act, and Exchange Act Rules 10b-5 and 14e-3; (2) ordering him to disgorge his trading profits in the amount of $1,193,594, plus pay prejudgment interest of $1,438.85; and (3) ordering him to pay a civil penalty of $250,667.15 pursuant to Section 21A of the Exchange Act."