A senior IT professional who was a trusted employee of a top Silicon Valley law firm is headed to prison.
Dimitry Braverman was arrested last year at his home in San Mateo, California. The 42-year-old man was accused of loading up on stocks and options for companies he knew had mergers or other major transactions on the way, because he had access to confidential information at the law firm he worked at, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati.
Braverman, who made $305,000 in profits off the illegal transactions, pled guilty in November. The companies he traded on included retailer Gymboree, Drugstore.com, Epicor Software, Seagate Technology, software firm Dealertrack Technologies, storage company Xyratex, and pharmaceutical companies YM Biosciences and Astex Pharmaceuticals.
Aristotle Onassis made his first real money listening in on phone calls while he worked as a switchboard operator in Argentina. He went on to marry Jackie Kennedy.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:38AM
I don't know, first Martha Stewart, then the AG of Texas, and now some IT guy. Seems like no one understands the concept of the free market, where information is cost-free and equally available to all rational actors in the market. Instead, they try to corner information, and then leverage it, to sort of tilt the playing field. Bad form, I say, bad form, old chap!
(Score: -1, Troll) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:14AM
A Jew will take your money with a smile and leave you convinced that it's for your own good. An Arab will take your money and play dumb about it when he inevitably gets caught.
But a Slav will not only take your money, he'll take out a life-insurance policy on you and stab you in the back the second after he shakes your hand. Then he'll cut your organs out and sell them on the Black market.
You can turn your back on a man, but you can never turn your back on a Slav.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:53AM
You should have no interest to, vodka is best served chilled and facing the host.
(grin)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:21AM
Tell us of your people, Ethanol; How does trailer trash take your money?
(Score: 3, Funny) by Tork on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:32AM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:33AM
They don't take my money, they prefer to get paid in six-packs of Schlitz.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Sunday August 02 2015, @11:48AM
Trailer trash will steal your money and say, "Mistakes were made?"
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:38AM
$150K a year, probably spent at a club fed? Hell I'd take that deal, which is of course the problem with white collar crime laws, they give you so little punishment compared to what you net its nearly always a net gain. As I read years ago "Steal $50 in a hold up, get 15 years, steal 500 million? Become Senator."
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:56AM
Serpe noted that he had agreed to pay $520,433 in reparations to the US Securities and Exchange Commission, substantially more than the profits he made.
they give you so little punishment compared to what you net its nearly always a net gain.
Yeah, those prosecutors are sooo stupid. And you are a jeanyes!!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:05PM
Prosecutors tend to be stupid and/or corrupt, yes.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:04PM
So he agreed to over 1/2 million in reparations. Makes me wonder if maybe he (or pals of his) made much much more off the info. As for time in "Club Fed", a friend of mine spent a year in Lompoc for smuggling pot back in the late 70s. His life in the prison camp sounded a lot better than my couple of years in in a Silicon Valley cube farm at the same time.
Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not to his own facts"- --Daniel Patrick Moynihan--
(Score: 3, Interesting) by davester666 on Sunday August 02 2015, @07:11AM
These people exactly understand what you are saying. They got a bunch of secret information for free, and then publicly used it to make themselves a bunch of money.
Other people were the ones trying to keep the information secret.
And the stock market is predicated on people not having the same information at the same time. Sure, way back it was sold that way, but that hasn't been even remotely true for a long time. Now, for the individual "investor", they just hope the lottery ticket wins. Or at least, doesn't go south.
And then there are the none-rational actors, like the guy who wanted to be the first person to have a futures contract for oil at $100. So he spent millions driving the price up to $100. And EVERYBODY had to pay higher fuel prices because "he wanted to".
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday August 02 2015, @04:51AM
Canto 8 has been on plate for eons, I will realign my core synergies in a white paper real soon now.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 5, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Sunday August 02 2015, @05:46AM
After decades of insider trading, Congress passed the STOCK act to sorta reign in the practice, though of course they weakened it as much as humanely possible before passing it: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/michael-winship/congress-takes-a-step-or_b_1379429.html [huffingtonpost.com]
If that wasn't enough, a year later it gets even weaker: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/17/stock-act-change-insider-trading_n_3100115.html [huffingtonpost.com]
And currently, "Congress Tells Court That Congress Can't Be Investigated for Insider Trading": https://firstlook.org/theintercept/2015/05/07/congress-argues-cant-investigated-insider-trading/ [firstlook.org]
So, pass weak law, then make it weaker, and then declare yourself immune from that wussy law. Congress knows it's shit.
On the other hand, if you're some low level dude far from the halls of power, you get Federal prison time.
(Score: 2, Troll) by aristarchus on Sunday August 02 2015, @08:34AM
That's what they're doing, alright!
reign in the practice
Yes, let us reign with this practice! We will reign like kings, since we are reigning!
[Grammar Nazi tip: there are many words in English that sound the same, but are spelled differently. These are called "homophones". It is the mark of a literate person to not confuse these. Here we have an instance of reign for rein (and we will skip the not mentioned "rain"). One means to rule, as a monarch, the other means to control, as do the reins attached to a bit on a bridle in order to stop or restrain a horse, which was the intended sense here. And while we are at it, let's practice with a few more! Brake is what brakes do, on a cart, sled, railroad car, or automobile; "break" is what happens to you automobile when the brakes break. And on this web site we should not have to cite the difference between these two senses and a vision, as in "sight".
I recommend http://public.wsu.edu/~brians/errors/errors.html [wsu.edu] for when you are not sure whether it be more noble to bear or bare arms in different weather, There is quite a list of confusions between homophones, one of my favorite (but slightly obscure) is the difference between "bated" and "baited", especially in regard to breath. ]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @10:41AM
You really should have cited a site on sight, just to be complete.
(Score: 4, Touché) by Phoenix666 on Sunday August 02 2015, @11:57AM
Sorry, man, but you fell victim to one of the classic blunders - The most famous of which is "never get involved in a land war in Asia" - but only slightly less well-known is this: "As soon as you go grammar nazi on the internet, you will be hoisted on your own petard."
It's:
"break" is what happens to your automobile when the brakes break.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Sunday August 02 2015, @10:23PM
Or alternatively, "what happens to you and your automobile"? it's possible. Never can tell what a grammar nazi is intending to write, since they are using grammar and words correctly. And I am always in favor of hoisting petards! But isn't the phrase "by your own petard"?
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Monday August 03 2015, @01:46AM
Amusingly, Congress actually does reign while practicing insider trading.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @03:08PM
So there are arbitrary rules that say you can't make use of information you have available to you to choose what to invest in or what not to invest in in certain situations. Capitalism sure is logical.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @06:02PM
You have never heard of insider trading? Really?
Okay here is the reasoning: Capitalism relies on well informed market actors having access to the same information for it to work and (presumably) be fair. If someone knows BP just blew up another oil rig and takes a short position on it before the news hits, then they can make out far more money at everyone else's expense. You know, just like stealing but harder to detect. Something similar would be a doctor allowing a patient to elect an expensive surgery without bothering to tell them that it will probably kill them just so the doctor gets to charge for it.
So yes it is bad to let everyone use the information they have and others don't to make financial decisions. Nevermind that capitalist theory was originally intended to be descriptive instead of prescriptive, and that was two hundred years ago.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2015, @09:08PM
It was never meant to be logical, only exploitative, inherently meant only to benefit the rich and exploit the poor. The creators of capitalism said it best:
Arthur Young - "everyone but an idiot knows that the lower classes must be kept poor, or they will never be industrious"
Patrick Colquhoun - "Poverty is therefore a most necessary and indispensable ingredient in society…It is the source of wealth, since without poverty, there could be no labour; there could be no riches, no refinement, no comfort, and no benefit to those who may be possessed of wealth"
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday August 02 2015, @09:44PM
Capitalism wasn't designed to be exploitative. Capitalism was designed logically and theoretically to work, just like socialism should in theory work and democracy in theory work and monarchy in theory work and so on. In reality human sociopathy kicks in more often than not.
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