By: Derek Hawkins//December 13, 2016//
US Supreme Court
Case Name: Salman v. United States
Case No.: 15-628
Focus: Insider Trading – Securities Exchange Act of 1934
The Ninth Circuit properly applied Dirks to affirm Salman’s conviction. Under Dirks, the jury could infer that the tipper here personally benefited from making a gift of confidential information to a trading relative.
“Petitioner Salman was indicted for federal securities-fraud crimes for trading on inside information he received from a friend and relative-by-marriage, Michael Kara, who, in turn, received the information from his brother, Maher Kara, a former investment banker at Citigroup. Maher testified at Salman’s trial that he shared inside information with his brother Michael to benefit him and expected him to trade on it, and Michael testified to sharing that information with Salman, who knew that it was from Maher. Salman was convicted. While Salman’s appeal to the Ninth Circuit was pending, the Second Circuit decided that Dirks does not permit a factfinder to infer a personal benefit to the tipper from a gift of confidential information to a trading relative or friend, unless there is “proof of a meaningfully close personal relationship” between tipper and tippee “that generates an exchange that is objective, consequential, and represents at least a potential gain of a pecuniary or similarly valuable nature,” United States v. Newman, 773 F. 3d 438, 452, cert. denied, 577 U. S. ___. The Ninth Circuit declined to follow Newman so far, holding that Dirks allowed Salman’s jury to infer that the tipper breached a duty because he made “ ‘a gift of confidential information to a trading relative.’ ” 792 F. 3d 1087, 1092 (quoting Dirks, 463 U. S., at 664).”
Affirmed