SEC Charges San Francisco Bay Area Finance Employee and Friend With Insider Trading

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced settled insider trading charges against Bay Area finance employee Mounir N. Gad and his friend Nathan E. Guido. According to the SEC’s orders against Gad and Guido, Gad worked for a Northern California-based bank in its group that assisted private equity firms in financing acquisitions of companies. On three occasions in 2015 and 2016, Gad tipped Guido, his friend of several years, using material, nonpublic information about upcoming acquisitions (two of which involved tender offers), which Gad learned about in the course of his employment. Gad used an encrypted messaging platform and code words to provide the tips to Guido. According to the orders, Guido bought stock in the target companies based on those tips and sold the stock after the acquisitions were announced, resulting in illegal gains of $51,700.