Inside Information

The New York Appellate Division for the First Judicial Department has disbarred an attorney as a result of a criminal conviction for conspiracy to commit securities fraud. The court described the admitted facts:

During his plea allocution respondent admitted that between approximately June 2007 and May 2008, while he was employed at a Manhattan law firm, he and another firm attorney accessed confidential information about mergers and acquisitions, unbeknownst to other attorneys, and then knowingly and voluntarily passed the confidential information to another attorney, not employed by the same firm, who subsequently provided the confidential information to a trader. The confidential information was then used by the trader to make stock purchases in publicly traded companies. Respondent was paid in cash for the information.

The conviction led to automatic disbarment under New York rules.

Details about the criminal case are available at this link from Business Insider Law Review. (Mike Frisch)