SEC Wins Jury Trial Against Massachusetts Man Charged in Multi-Year Insider Trading Scheme

Yesterday evening, jurors in Boston federal court returned a verdict finding that Lexington, Massachusetts restauranteur Charlie Chen engaged in illegal insider trading in advance of five earnings announcements of Lexington-based company Vistaprint, N.V. The SEC's evidence at trial showed that Chen, who was close friends with a Vistaprint insider and her husband, received highly confidential nonpublic information and used it to place trades in advance of five different announcements of Vistaprint's financial results from April 2013 through July 2014. On some occasions, Chen placed extremely aggressive bets such as wagering much of his retirement account on risky Vistaprint options before the company's announcement of disappointing earnings results in April 2014.