US watchdog charges 13 with insider trading

US watchdog charges 13 with insider trading

Larry Elliott, economics editor
Friday March 2, 2007

The US financial watchdog, the securities and exchange commission (SEC), chose a third day of extreme turbulence on the world's financial markets yesterday to bring charges against 13 people in the biggest crackdown on alleged insider trading on Wall Street since the 1980s.

With share prices gyrating on the New York market, the SEC said it had acted against "one of the most pervasive insider trading rings since the days of Ivan Boesky and Dennis Levine", both jailed for manipulating the markets in the 1980s.