"I Think We Got Away With It": HSBC Trader"s Fate Left To Jurors After Damning Phone Recordings Revealed

After weeks of testimony, the fate of former HSBC trader Mark Johnson, who stands accused of orchestrating a massive international front-running scheme that netted his firm over $8 million in illicit profits, has been left in the hands jurors.

Over the past couple of weeks, tidbits of the prosecution"s case has made it"s way into the media, including reports last week that Johnson used the code phrase "my watch is off" to trigger trading by HSBC traders all around the globe.  Meanwhile, as Law360 recently pointed out, jurors also had the opportunity to hear some rather damning recordings of Johnson"s phone conversations with traders, including the one below in which he says "I think we got away with it."

Prosecutors played a recording of a call between Johnson and Stuart after the 3 p.m. fix as they debrief, with Johnson telling Stuart, “I think we got away with it,” but Stuart replies that HSBC executive Dipak Khot — who acted as the go between with Cairn and HSBC — thinks otherwise and suspects that Cairn will protest.

 

Johnson in turn argued that Cairn is still in a better position than it would have been if it had taken any other offers to execute the deal in alternate methods as opposed to the fix. “They don’t really have a lot of room to complain,” he said on the call.

 

But as Cahill was trading ahead of the 3 p.m. fix on the day of the transaction, Johnson sounded more concerned about “ramping it up” too much. Jurors heard another recording of a call between Johnson and Scott, with Scott talking to Cahill in the background as he trades, in which Johnson cautions against spiking the price of sterling too high out of concern that Cairn will "squeal."

 

“Frank, Frank if it rates above 30 at the fix, I think they’ll start to ah ... if you need to buy them, obviously, but ideally don’t ramp it above 30,” Scott tells Cahill. “Do what you need to do, but ... sorry I know I’m probably not helping much...I’ll leave you alone.”

 

“Is he getting a bit tetchy?” Johnson asks.

 

“No, he’s not,” Scott replies.

 

“He can’t, fucking moaning bastard,” Johnson said. “I do all the work and he gets all the glory.”

 

Jurors heard that days later in a call with HSBC forex trader Ed Carmichael in Hong Kong, Johnson told him that HSBC’s London forex trading desk, “just had a bonanza” on the Cairn deal, and described his response when Cairn sought an explanation on the less than stellar result for the oil and gas developer.

Of course, when HSBC"s client complained about their less than stellar execution price, Johnson admits that he blamed all the usual suspects: "Russians, other central banks, all that sort of stuff."

“And they said, well you know it jumped up a bit, who else was buying? And we said the usual Russian names, other central banks, all that sort of stuff,” Johnson said on the call.

For those who haven"t followed this particular story, Mark Johnson was arrested at New York’s Kennedy Airport in 2016 before he could return to the U.K. following a nearly 3-year investigation into efforts on the part of several large investment banks to rig FX markets but Stuart Scott has remained free at his home in the London suburbs pending the outcome of the extradition proceedings.  Per Bloomberg:

Mark Johnson, HSBC’s global head of foreign exchange cash trading in London, was taken into custody at John F. Kennedy International Airport Tuesday and is scheduled to appear before a judge in federal court in Brooklyn Wednesday morning, said the people, who asked not to be named because the case hasn’t been made public. He’s charged with conspiracy to commit wire fraud, the people said.

 

According to Bloomberg, Johnson’s arrest comes more than a year after five global banks pleaded guilty to charges related to the rigging of currency benchmarks. HSBC, which wasn’t part of those criminal cases, in November 2014 agreed to pay $618 million in penalties to U.S. and British regulators to resolve currency manipulation allegations. HSBC, which still faces investigations by the Justice Department and other authorities for the conduct, has set aside $1.3 billion for possible settlements, according to an August filing.

 

Rob Sherman, an HSBC spokesman, and Peter Carr, a Justice Department spokesman, declined to comment.

According to the original DOJ complaint, HSBC was selected by Cairn Energy Plc to execute a foreign exchange transaction – which was going to require converting approximately $3.5 billion in sales proceeds into British Pound Sterling – in October 2011.  But, before executing that trade, he tipped off a bunch of HSBC traders who loaded up their proprietary accounts with Pounds just before the massive trade sent the currency higher.

“As alleged, the defendants placed personal and company profits ahead of their duties of trust and confidentiality owed to their client, and in doing so, defrauded their client of millions of dollars,” stated United States Attorney Capers.  “When questioned by their client about the higher price paid for their significant transaction, the defendants wove a web of lies designed to conceal the truth and divert attention away from their fraudulent trades.  The charges and arrest announced today reflect our steadfast commitment to hold accountable corporate executives and licensed professionals who use their positions to fraudulently enrich themselves.”

 

“The defendants allegedly betrayed their client’s confidence, and corruptly manipulated the foreign exchange market to benefit themselves and their bank,” said Assistant Attorney General Caldwell.  “This case demonstrates the Criminal Division’s commitment to hold corporate executives, including at the world’s largest and most sophisticated institutions, responsible for their crimes.”

As we noted last week, nearly a dozen HSBC traders around the globe netted over $8 million in profits by allegedly front-running their own client.

Of course, Johnson would like for you to know that this entire case is just "much ado about nothing" as he never intended to "front-run" his client but rather was just engaging in some innocent "pre-hedging"...which is a new term for us...must be a technical term only used by European FX traders.

Deutsche Bank Trader Admits To Rigging Precious Metals Markets

After months of "smoking guns" and conspiracy theory dismissals, a Singapore-based Deutsche Bank trader (at the center of fraud allegations) finally confirmed (by admitting guilt) what many have suspected - the biggest banks in the world have conspired to rig precious metals markets.

The Deutsche Bank trader, David Liew, pleaded guilty in federal court in Chicago to conspiring to spoof gold, silver, platinum and palladium futures, according to court papers. Bloomberg notes that spoofing involves traders placing orders that they never intend to fill, in an attempt to manipulate the price.

Following an introductory period that included orientation and training, LIEW was eventually assigned to the metals trading desk (which included base metals and precious metals trading) in approximately December 2009. During the Relevant Period, LIEW was employed by Bank A as a metals trader in the Asia-Pacific region, and his primary duties included precious metals market making and futures trading.

...

Between in or around December 2009 and in or around February 2012 (the "Relevant Period"), in the Northern District of Illinois, Eastem Division, and elsewhere, defendant DAVID LIEW did knowingly and intentionally conspire and agree with other precious metals (gold, silver, platinum, and palladium) traders to: (a) knowingly execute, and attempt to execute, a scheme and artifice to defraud, and for obtaining money and property by means of materially false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, and in furtherance of the scheme and artifice to defraud, knowingly transmit, and cause to be transmitted, in interstate and foreign commerce, by means of wire communications, certain signs, signals and sounds, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 1343,which scheme affected a financial institution; and (b) knowingly engage in trading, practice, and conduct, on and subject to the rules of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange ("CME"), that was, was of the character of, and was commonly known to the trade as, spoofing, that is, bidding or offering with the intent to cancel the bid or offer before execution, by causing to be transmitted to the CME precious metals futures contract orders that LIEW and his coconspirators intended to cancel before execution and not as part of any legitimate, good-faith attempt to execute any part of the orders, in violation of Title 7, United States Code, Sections 6c(a)(5)(C) and 13(a)(2); all in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 371.

...

Defendant LIEW"s employer, Bank A, was one of the largest global banking and financial services companies in the world. Bank A"s primary precious metals trading desks were located in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Asia-Pacific region.

Defendant LIEW and other precious metals traders, including traders at Bank A, engaged in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution and spoofing, in the trading of precious metals futures contracts traded on the CME.

Defendant LIEW placed, and conspired to place, hundreds of orders to buy or to sell precious metals futures contracts that he intended to cancel and not to execute at the time he placed the orders (the "Spoof Orders").

...

Bank A operated a global metals trading team with traders in the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Asia-Pacific region. Throughout his tenure on the metals trading desk at Bank A, defendant LIEW was supervised by and interacted with more experienced traders on the team. LIEW was supervised by other metals traders in the Asia-Pacific region, and, due to the nature of the nearly 24-hour trading cycle, LIEW interacted with members of the trading team in the United States and the United Kingdom. It was after joining the metals trading desk that LIEW was taught to spoof by other metals traders, including other metals traders at Bank A.

Defendant LIEW generated Spoof Orders manually. That is, LIEW physically clicked his computer mouse or keyboard keys to enter each Spoof Order, and physically clicked his mouse or keyboard keys to cancel that order.

A common technique employed by defendant LIEW was to place and cancel one or more Spoof Orders on one side of the prevailing market price. The intent of these Spoof Orders was to facilitate the execution of an existing Primary Order on the opposite side of the market. By placing Spoof Orders opposite the Primary Order, LIEW intended to create a false appearance of supply or demand and induce other market participants to react to this false information in order to move the market price and/or increase the available quantity at the desired price of the relevant futures contract. During the time the Spoof Order was live in the market, or shortly after it was cancelled, LIEW"s Primary Order on the other side of the market would often execute at a more favorable price than was otherwise available before the Spoof Order had been placed.

...

Coordinated spoofing involved one or more additional participants. When engaging in coordinated spoofing, defendant LIEW and/or one or more co-conspirators would place one or more Spoof Orders on one side of the market in order to facilitate the execution of Primary Orders placed on the opposite side of the market by either LIEW or a coconspirator. For example, LIEW would place a Spoof Order in order to facilitate the execution of a Primary Order placed by a co-conspirator, or a co-conspirator would place a Spoof Order in order to facilitate the execution of a Primary Order placed by LIEW. At other times, LIEW and one or more co-conspirators would each place one or more Spoof Orders in order to facilitate the execution of a Primary Order placed by LIEW or a co-conspirator.

During and in furtherance of the conspiracy, defendant LIEW engaged in solo spoofing or coordinated spoofing with traders at Bank A hundreds of times.

Prosecutors have brought very few cases against alleged spoofers but have stepped up their enforcement since the adoption of the Dodd-Frank financial law.

Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

From a July 2012 blog post, we discover that Liew quit banking then to start a tech company...

A bit like Vinicius, I was (and still am) in my third year out of University and making a very comfortable living as a trader at Deutsche Bank. Here in Singapore (sadly), a sort of toxic culture has been brewing that your “success” is deemed by your salary. Yes, I was getting a 6 digit annual salary, yes I was in the top % of wage earners of my age group (I’m turning 27 this year). A lot of people have labelled me “crazy” to “throw all I had away”, to which I would reply “This is my life, not yours. But thanks and good luck to you too”

This is not the first time Deutsche Bank has been involved, implicated, and exposed to rigging the precious metals markets.

As we noted in December, when we first reported that Deutsche Bank had agreed to settle allegations it had rigged the silver market in exchange for $38 million, we revealed something stunning: "in a curious twist, the settlement letter revealed that the former members of the manipulation cartel have turned on each other", and that Deutsche Bank would provide docments implicating other precious metals riggers. To wit: "In addition to valuable monetary consideration, Deutsche Bank has also agreed to provide cooperation to plaintiffs, including the production of instant messages, and other electronic communications, as part of the settlement. In Plaintiff’s estimation, the cooperation to be provided by Deutsche Bank will substantially assist Plaintiffs in the prosecution of their claims against the non-settling defendants."

Overnight we finally got a glimpse into what this "production" contained, and according to documents filed by the plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit, what Deutsche Bank provided as part of its settlement was nothing short of "smoking gun" proof that UBS Group AG, HSBC Holdings Plc, Bank of Nova Scotia and other firms rigged the silver market. The allegation, as Bloomberg first noted, came in a filing Wednesday in a Manhattan federal court lawsuit filed in 2014 by individuals and entities that bought or sold futures contracts.

In the document records surrendered by Deutsche Bank and presented below, traders and submitters were captured coordinating trades in advance of a daily phone call, manipulating the spot market for silver, conspiring to fix the spread on silver offered to customers and using illegal strategies to rig prices.

“Plaintiffs are now able to plead with direct, ‘smoking gun’ evidence,’ including secret electronic chats involving silver traders and submitters across a number of financial institutions, a multi-year, well-coordinated and wide-ranging conspiracy to rig the prices,” the plaintiffs said in their filing.

The latest evidence is critical because as the plaintiffs add, the new scheme “far surpasses the conspiracy alleged earlier.” As a result, the litigants are seeking permission to file a new complaint with the additional allegations, i.e., demand even more reparations from the defendants who have not yet settled, and perhaps even more evidence of ongoing market rigging. Their proposed complaint broadens the case beyond the four banks initially sued to include claims against units of Barclays Plc, BNP Paribas Fortis SA, Standard Chartered Plc and Bank of America Corp.

Representatives of UBS, BNP Paribas Fortis, HSBC, Standard Chartered and Scotiabank didn’t immediately respond to e-mails outside regular business hours seeking comment on the allegations. Barclays and Bank of America declined to immediately comment.

The Deutsche Bank documents show, among other things, how two UBS traders communicated directly with two Deutsche Bank traders and discussed ways to rig the market. The traders shared customer order-flow information, improperly triggered customer stop-loss orders, and engaged in practices such as spoofing, all meant to destabilize the price of silver ahead of the fix and result in forced selling or buying. It is also what has led on so many occasions to the infamous previous metals "slam", when out of nowhere billions in notional contracts emerge, usually with the intent to sell, to halt any upside moment in the precious metals/ 

"UBS was the third-largest market maker in the silver spot market and could directly influence the prices of silver financial instruments based on the sheer volume of silver it traded," the plaintiffs allege. "Conspiring with other large market makers, like Deutsche Bank and HSBC, only increased UBS’s ability to influence the market."

Some examples of the chats quoted are shown below. In the first example a chart between DB and HSBC traders in which one HSBC trader says "really wanna sel sil[ver" to which the other trader says "Let"s go and smash it together."

Another chat transcript from May 11, 2011 reveals a Deutsche Bank trader telling a UBS trader that the cartel "WERE THE SILVER MARKET"(sic) based on feedback from outside traders to which UBS replies, referring to the silver market "we smashed it good", leading to the following lament "fking hell UBS now u make me regret not joining."

Finally, for all those traders who wonder what happened to their stops as a result of dramatic moves in the price, here is the answer: a June 2011 chat between a UBS and a DB trader comes down to the following: "if you have stops... who ya gonna call... STOP BUSTERS"

Liew"s admission of guilt to a conspiracy to spoof precious metals markets seems like the final nail in the coffin of any conspiracy theory deniers - theory is now fact once again. The question is - will the regulatory crackdown on these manipulations actually reduce rigging in the markets?

Feds: "We Come Across Real Estate Being Purchased With Illicit Funds Once Every Other Case"

The latest note out of real estate expert Mark Hanson points to something we have discussed since 2012: the use of US real estate to park "hot" and in some cases illegal foreign capital in US real estate courtesy of the NAR"s exemption from anti-money laundering regulations. Some of the highlighted observations are stunning.

Higher-End REAL ESTATE TROUBLE Worsens (From New York to Florida to California), by Mark Hanson of M Hanson Advisers

In Feb. 2016, the Treasury"s FinCEN enacted "GEOGRAPHIC, ANTI-MONEY-LAUNDERING, TARGETING ORDERS of 2016".

Apparently, the program worked out so well, in August "16, it was expanded to cover the rest NYC and SoFL, in addition to the LA, San Diego, San Fran Bay Area, and San Antonio regions. Regarding the expansion, on July 28, 2016, I put out a note entitled "7-28 Hanson...Higher End Real Estate"s Coup De Grace...Heads-Up,." copied at the bottom of this note, highlighting what I perceived to be the fall-out.

Everybody assumed this program would end organically last month, but it was renewed for another year, which wasn"t widely reported.

THESE STATEMENTS BY INVESTIGATORS ARE OMINOUS, especially considering that "foreign and domestic fraud and money laundering" was one of my "four pillars of unorthodox housing demand", over which I have pounded the table for the past several years.

"We don"t come across [money laundering in real estate] once every 10 or 12 cases," John Tobon, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Deputy Special Agent in Charge for South Florida, told the Miami Herald in January. "We come across real estate being purchased with illicit funds once every other case." 

"FinCEN said that 30 percent of reported transactions across the nation were linked to buyers who had been flagged by banks and other financial institutions for suspicious activity."

Well, this is one way to narrow the ever-increasing divergence between higher and lower end real estate prices...blow-up the higher end.

I don"t find it any coincidence that the era of ASPIRATIONAL PRICES in the middle-high to luxury segment ended abruptly in early 2016, in lock-step with this program ramping up, as evidenced by headlines of 20% to 40% list price haircuts reported constantly - most recent is Mickey Drexler"s $35M to $19.95M haircut -- in exactly the markets, which the program targets.

There is such a thin pool of demand for middle-high to luxury real estate, that if one demand cohort goes away (fraud, or suspicious purchases by LLC"s, for example), and some "innocent others", who simply don"t want the Treasury tracking them, "move to the sidelines", it will create a massive hole in demand and pricing power.

It only takes a few real estate transactions to "reset" entire markets, higher and lower, and establish new trends before most everybody else (headline readers) without access to real-time, transactional data even realizes it.

Region"s being tracked now are listed, as follows. The price triggers aren"t too high. Heck, $2mm may not even get you a quarter-acre dirt in Palo Alto.

• New York: Manhattan with a threshold at $3 million; Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, and Staten Island at $1.5 million.


• Florida: Miami-Dade County, Broward County, and Palm Beach County, all at $1 million.


• California South: San Diego County and Los Angeles County;


• California North: San Francisco, San Mateo County, and Santa Clara County, all at $2 million.


• Texas: Bexar County (San Antonio area) with a threshold of $500,000.

Small leaks in large bubbles can turn into rips very easily. Which makes it critical for high end owners, investors, and speculators, that the remaining "three pillars of unorthodox demand", which I am tracking closely, don"t fail (some already are).

The article below by Miami Herald covers the renewed GTO for 2017:

Feds renew crackdown on dirty money in Miami real estate
By Nicholas Nehamas
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/real-estate-news/article134518184.html
nnehamas@miamiherald.com

Feb 23, 2017

After months of “will-they-or-won’t-they” speculation, the U.S. Treasury Department announced Thursday that it will extend its search for dirty money in six high-end real estate markets, including South Florida, for another six months.

The rules, initially imposed early last year as a temporary measure on Miami-Dade County and Manhattan, require shell companies buying expensive homes with cash to report their true owners to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a Treasury agency. Law enforcement officials have said a lack of oversight allows criminals from around the world to launder money through luxury real estate in the United States.

In the weeks following the election of President Donald Trump — a former real estate developer — it was unclear whether the new administration would continue the effort, which was set to expire on Thursday.

“This is an administration that says it is both pro-business and pro-law enforcement,” said Lee Stapleton, a South Florida attorney and former federal prosecutor. “This order shows that they’re not incompatible. … It’s not good for real estate or for business if illicit dollars are artificially inflating the market. And law enforcement doesn’t want real estate to be a safe haven for money laundering.”

The so-called geographic targeting order had already been renewed once before when it was also expanded to Broward and Palm Beach counties; the other four boroughs of New York City; Los Angeles County; San Diego County; the greater San Francisco area; and the county that includes San Antonio, Texas. The rules kick into effect at different price points depending on the market. In South Florida, home sales of $1 million or more are covered.

By extending the order rather than announcing a plan to craft permanent regulations that would apply nationwide, the Trump administration showed it has perhaps not made up its mind on whether to continue the crackdown long-term, said Andrew Ittleman, a Miami-based attorney who is an expert on anti-money laundering compliance laws.

“I wouldn’t read too much into the extension,” Ittleman said. “Trump was only inaugurated a month ago. To me, this is a sign the administration could be kicking the can down the road a little bit. … They have plenty of issues on their plate right now.”

The cities chosen for enhanced scrutiny all feature pricey real estate markets and an abundance of foreign buyers, a combination that federal law enforcement officials believe make them prime targets for money laundering.

“We don’t come across [money laundering in real estate] once every 10 or 12 cases,” John Tobon, U.S. Homeland Security Investigations Deputy Special Agent in Charge for South Florida, told the Miami Herald in January. “We come across real estate being purchased with illicit funds once every other case.”

The revelations of the Panama Papers showed how easily secret money from offshore flows into South Florida real estate.

Money laundering fight

In a news release, FinCEN said that 30 percent of reported transactions across the nation were linked to buyers who had been flagged by banks and other financial institutions for suspicious activity.

The agency has not said how many transactions have been reported or whether any have led to criminal investigations. Officials have described the rules as a temporary data-gathering activity meant to determine whether money laundering in real estate deserves permanent national regulations.

“These GTOs are producing valuable data that is assisting law enforcement and is serving to inform our future efforts to address money laundering in the real estate sector,” FinCEN acting director Jamal El-Hindi said in a statement. “The subject of money laundering and illicit financial flows involving the real estate sector is something that we have been taking on in steps to ensure that we continue to build an efficient and effective regulatory approach.”

Some brokers and developers have worried that the rules would affect sales — although a Herald analysis found that doesn’t appear to be the case — and criticized the government’s efforts as unnecessary and poorly designed. But a national trade group for the title industry said it supports the anti-money laundering push.

“Our members have collected this information for more than a year and the good news is those efforts appear to be beneficial to the government’s work identifying money laundering schemes and the illegal purchase of real estate,” Michelle Korsmo, chief executive officer of the American Land Title Association, said in a statement. “We continue to work closely with our members and FinCEN to collect the needed information as efficiently as possible.”

SEC Freezes Accounts Of "Highly Suspicious" Traders Who Made $3.6 Million On Fortress Takeover

First, it was the leak of the massive Heinz-Unilever deal that may have scuttled the Warren Buffett-inspired transaction, now it appears that another recent megamerger was leaked 4 days ahead of the announcement. On Wednesday morning, the SEC froze brokerage accounts of several unnamed traders who made more than $3.6 million in profits by trading in the four days before the $3.3 billion takeover of Fortress Investment Group was announced by Japan’s SoftBank.

According to the FT, the traders placed “highly suspicious” orders for shares and contracts for difference, or CFDs, through Singapore-based Maybank Securities and a brokerage in London, R.J. O’Brien. Breaking the second cardinal rule of insider trading, i.e., never to buy stocks in bulk in the day ahead of the announcement (the first such rule is never to buy calls the before a deal is announced although the "insiders" did that too), all the trades through Maybank were made within a 24-hour period before the deal to buy the US-listed private equity firm was announced to the market; meanwhile trade through R.J. O’Brien took place between February 10 and 14, the day the deal was disclosed the SEC reported.

“The timing, size and profitability of these trades are highly suspicious,” the SEC said in a court filing asking for the freeze.

As the FT adds, the SEC is seeking a judgment to force the traders to disgorge the profits and pay a penalty. SoftBank’s offer for Fortress was a 30 per cent premium over the private equity firm’s closing share price that day. Also, as the SEC further notes, it appears that the rookie traders decided to really bring attention on themselves by also breaking Cardinal rule #1: a burst of option buying ahead of the deal. Just like in the case of the Unilever deal, which saw a surge in call option volume for both Unilever and Kraft Heinz ahead of the announcement...

...  the size of bets in the options market prior to the deal raised eyebrows in the US, leading several market experts to believe that information had been leaked ahead of the deal.

The volume of options trading in Fortress was more than eight times the normal level ahead of the deal’s public announcement. Specifically, customers of Maybank bought 950,000 shares in Fortress hours before the announcement, selling them the next morning for $1.7 million. R.J. O’Brien’s customers bought CFDs and shares in Fortress, which they sold on February 15 for $1.9 million, according to the SEC’s complaint seeking the freeze.

Also notable is how quickly the leak appears to have emerged: the Maybank clients began placing the trades on February 14, building up a $5 million position, 33 minutes after Fortress’s board of directors received an email with draft resolutions approving the deal, according to the SEC. Only two days before, there was “serious doubt” as to whether the deal would even go through, the SEC complaint said.

Discussions between SoftBank and Fortress had begun in December, and the two companies initially planned to finalise the deal over the weekend of February 10-12, putting it to a board vote at Fortress on February 12.  The R.J. O’Brien clients began buying CFDs on February 10, through an account with Merrill Lynch, just before that weekend. The only other time Maybank bought any Fortress stock through its account at UBS was in February 2016, when 10,000 shares were bought and later sold in April.

As the FT notes, the emergency court order obtained by the SEC on February 24 will prevent the traders from accessing any of those gains. As yet, the SEC said they do not know the identities of the traders, but said in the complaint they are “believed to be foreign traders trading through foreign accounts”.

In recent years, suspicious trading before deals has been under increased scrutiny by the SEC and regulators around the world after insider trading prosecutions in New York over the past decade exposed the extent of the crime. The SEC has yet to launch a probe into the far larger Unilever leak(s).