Securities Law Commons^™

The Ethics Of Insider Trading, Gary S. Lawson

Faculty Scholarship

The quickest way to become famous is often to become infamous, as arbitrageur Ivan Boesky has recently discovered. Prior to November 1986, Mr. Boesky was well-known within the financial community, but largely unknown outside it. That changed dramatically following revelations that he and Dennis Levine, a merger specialist with the investment banking firm of Drexel Burnham Lambert, Inc., had made tens of millions of dollars in the stock market by using Mr. Levine's advance knowledge of impending takeovers by Drexel clients. Today, after disgorging $50 million in profits, paying $50 million in penalties, and receiving a jail sentence, Mr. Boesky …