SEC Charges Three Individuals with Insider Trading

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged three individuals with insider trading in advance of an announcement by Long Blockchain Company (formerly known as Long Island Iced Tea Co.) that it was going to "pivot" from its existing beverage business to blockchain technology, which caused the company’s stock price to soar. According to the SEC's complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Eric Watson, an undisclosed control person of Long Blockchain who helped drive this business change within the company and signed a confidentiality agreement not to disclose the company's business plans, tipped his friend and broker, Oliver Barret-Lindsay, of such plans, including by sharing with him a draft of the company's press release. Barret-Lindsay, in turn, allegedly passed the material nonpublic information on to his friend, Gannon Giguiere.