Jurisprudence Commons^™

Essay: Insiders, Outsiders, & Fair Access: Identifying Culpable Insider Trading, Jonathan D. Glater

Brooklyn Law Review

The Supreme Court’s insider trading doctrine has become increasingly convoluted as each effort to cope with novel fact patterns results in a new rule not tethered to principled understanding of the nature of the wrong committed. That this is not a terribly controversial claim is evidence of how far the Court’s jurisprudence has drifted. This essay proposes that the early error was abandonment of concern for third parties who trade on exchanges but who do not enjoy legal access to information possessed by insiders or tippees who receive information from insiders. The Court’s error, the essay contends, rests on a …