US Man Accused of Making $1.8 Million From Listening In On Wife's Remote Work Calls (theguardian.com) 107
Kalyeena Makortoff reports via The Guardian: US regulators have accused a man of making $1.8 million by trading on confidential information he overheard while his wife was on a remote call, in a case that could fuel arguments against working from home. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) said it charged Tyler Loudon with insider trading after he "took advantage of his remote working conditions" and profited from private information related to the oil firm BP's plans to buy an Ohio-based travel centre and truck-stop business last year.
The SEC claims that Loudon, who is based in Houston, Texas, listened in on several remote calls held by his wife, a BP merger and acquisitions manager who had been working on the planned deal in a home office 20ft (6 meters) away. The regulator said Loudon went on a buying spree, purchasing more than 46,000 shares in the takeover target, TravelCenters of America, without his wife's knowledge, weeks before the deal was announced on 16 February 2023. TravelCenters's stock soared by nearly 71% after the deal was announced. Loudon then sold off all of his shares, making a $1.8m profit.
Loudon eventually confessed to his wife, and claimed that he had bought the shares because he wanted to make enough money so that she did not have to work long hours anymore. She reported his dealings to her bosses at BP, which later fired her despite having no evidence that she knowingly leaked information to her husband. She eventually moved out of the couple's home and filed for divorce.
The SEC claims that Loudon, who is based in Houston, Texas, listened in on several remote calls held by his wife, a BP merger and acquisitions manager who had been working on the planned deal in a home office 20ft (6 meters) away. The regulator said Loudon went on a buying spree, purchasing more than 46,000 shares in the takeover target, TravelCenters of America, without his wife's knowledge, weeks before the deal was announced on 16 February 2023. TravelCenters's stock soared by nearly 71% after the deal was announced. Loudon then sold off all of his shares, making a $1.8m profit.
Loudon eventually confessed to his wife, and claimed that he had bought the shares because he wanted to make enough money so that she did not have to work long hours anymore. She reported his dealings to her bosses at BP, which later fired her despite having no evidence that she knowingly leaked information to her husband. She eventually moved out of the couple's home and filed for divorce.
Shifting problem, not solving it. (Score:1)
If they do it at work, then other employees may still eavesdrop. If they need a sound-proof office, then make a sound-proof office.
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The rule should apply to spouses also. Otherwise the snooping employee could just have their spouse buy based on tips they swiped.
There probably are such rules, but in this case the spouse ignored the rules, and so could rogue eaves-dropping employees.
I'm still not seeing what in-office itself is solving.
Re: Shifting problem, not solving it. (Score:5, Informative)
The rule DOES apply to spouses, hence her getting fired.
However, in the office you have people who have themselves signed on the dotted line, done the trainings, etc. Itâ(TM)s not a perfect control, but what is?
Iâ(TM)m all for WFH, but I do think thereâ(TM)s a rationale to the argument in this case. Whether that rationale is sufficient⦠/shrug.
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'hence'?
She was punished for the actions of another individual and you make it out like that's just the way things SHOULD work.
Re: Shifting problem, not solving it. (Score:2)
Re: Shifting problem, not solving it. (Score:2)
No that's not true. The way his mind works is that, say you ran a business by yourself, hiring no employees at all, and one day you paid him $10 to clean up the shit some meth head left by the front door. Now all of a sudden he believes that he's entitled to ownership of exactly half of your business under the reasoning that you didn't do it alone, and anything less is undemocratic.
Targeting and finger-pointing. (Score:1)
If they do it at work, then other employees may still eavesdrop. If they need a sound-proof office, then make a sound-proof office.
One, this is a crap move to abuse a one-off situation to point the finger at remote work and cry how evil and corrupt it has now proven to be, in order to push every worker back into an office, so we can keep Middle Earth Management cube farmers from going extinct like they should have post-COVID.
Two, this kind of "accidental" eavesdropping was happening in the Pelosi home for the last decade. Now it happens in many homes for those within the growing circle-jerk of Congressional Inside Traders. If you lis
Re:Targeting and finger-pointing. (Score:4, Insightful)
Her husband is either a complete idiot, or knowingly implicated her in a felony without even mentioning it to her first.
Honestly, either way this is likely only the most recent and dramatic of a long chain of problems.
And while a spouse may be kind of difficult to replace, their value is only as high as the respect they bring to the relationship. Love alone may be great for dating, but marriage has always been a business relationship.
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Are you saying you have a good relationship with someone who has no respect for you?
Or do you have no respect for them? I suppose that might look like a "good" relationship from your perspective...
Re: Shifting problem, not solving it. (Score:2)
Well Shite (Score:5, Insightful)
Ratted out by his own wife who got fired anyway for her efforts. Damn it.
Let's pretend for a moment this doesn't happen regularly, when people with access to sensitive information leverage what they know and trade securities based on that insider knowledge...aaannd we're not just talking about members of Congress and their families... that's not even illegal yet.
Re:Well Shite (Score:5, Insightful)
He made the mistake of committing the crime without the power and position to get away with it.
His wife did the correct thing - had she not reported it, then when it was eventually noticed she'd still have been fired as well having to repay the profits with interest, be facing a potential 20 year stretch in jail, and up to a $5 million fine.
Instead she just dumped her idiot husband and can look for a new job able to point that out to any potential employer who asks. "This is how committed I am to ethical behaviour - my husband became an issue so I divorced him". I'd hire her. Most people would have tried to cover it up and hope to get away with it.
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>"This is how committed I am to ethical behaviour - my husband became an issue so I divorced him"
A True Believer in Ethics might be too much for some companies.
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Maybe. Maybe that's her incredible sense of honor or her powerful innate sense of self-preservation at work.
Maybe she just didn't love that motherfracker like she used to. Who knows? All we know for sure is that sharing the details of a crime you've committed with another person increases the chance of discovery exponentially. Hell, might as well carry your cell phone to a murder scene.
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Re:Well Shite (Score:5, Informative)
She was his wife at the time the crime of insider trading, and a wife cannot testify against you.
"Spousal testimonial privilege" says that the spouse can't be *compelled* to testify in proceedings relating to their spouse, not that they can't testify. (Wikipedia says that in the US sometimes it's the witness-spouse who has this privilege, sometimes the party-spouse).
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Re: Well Shite (Score:2)
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Who else is going to go to the court to establish what actually happened?
What happened is that a person with very close ties to someone making a deal profited from it in a capacity that is wildly out of the ordinary for his normal trading patterns at a time that strongly suggests insider knowledge of what is happening and a position that suggests he was able to obtain that knowledge.
What "actually" happened doesn't matter. There's more than enough to convict beyond reasonable doubt without his wife saying anything.
Re: Well Shite (Score:2)
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During any merger and acquisition trades leading up to and following the sale are typically analysed for insider trading. And it doesn't sound like this guy put even the slightest effort into hiding what he was doing.
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Yes they would have been caught and convicted. Again he didn't hide anything, did something highly out of the ordinary and got an obvious windfall while in close proximity to actual inside information. Beyond reasonable doubt is easily met here.
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Lol are you serious? Insider trades happen all the time and no one cares. Do you have any idea how many giant option purchases are made just before a huge spike or drop in a stock before anyone else knows the news? The SEC doesn't have the budget to pursue each and every trade. And this one is small time at best. 71%? Meta gained 71% in a few months.
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It seems like you don't understand what separates insider training from normal trading. You comment about Meta could not be more of a demos demonstration that you don't understand this.
Yes, inside trading happens, and people go to jail for it all the time.
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IANAL but also doesn't she have cause against the company? She was fired for doing the right thing! It definitely has cost here a lot. Pile on some punitive damages maybe? What do I know. That's for actual lawyers to decide.
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It I'm pretty sure she was fired for NOT doing the right thing - A.k.a. making sure her husband could either be trusted to overhear the privileged conversations, or couldn't hear them.
The fact that the felony was committed is pretty clear evidence that, one way or another, she has poor judgement.
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That's definitely less of a bad look than either insider trading or deliberately conspiring to feed information to the inside trader; but it's still easily the sort of inadequately careful handling of sensitive data that would not go well with any j
Re: Well Shite (Score:2)
Well, he could have said he found the material in boxes in an unused bathroom or shuffled it into a garage and then she can claim she forgot all about it. That seems to work for some people.
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Biden cooperated, Trump denied and obstructed... and also showed off the materials to uncleared third parties long after he'd lost his authority to declassify (which he didn't know how to do properly anyway and claims its something like a Jedi mind power).
There was no point in injecting those examples into this discussion except as another pathetic attempt to make Biden look as guilty as Trump. Nobody buys it. Even you know Trump is (several) orders of magnitude worse.
Re: Well Shite (Score:2)
Always someone with no sense of humor...Buzzkill
The point is they both found a way to keep their sensitive reports - whether one is more guilty than the other is irrelevant - one DID find a way to spin his actions and rile his supporters. So, he benefited from his actions ... the other just gets called old.
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On top of what others have said, in most states companies can legally fire people for any reason or no reason at all, outside of a limited number of protected classes (race, gender, age, religion, stuff like that). They can fire you because they don't like the color of your pants.
Aside from that, the other protected category would be to protect people from retaliation for reporting illegal behavior (whistle blowing), reporting harassment, union organizing, reporting safety concerns, discussing workplace con
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He made the mistake of committing the crime without the power and position to get away with it.
Don't be so sure. Plenty of people with actual power have faced consequences, from that very company itself. You're talking about a company that very abruptly fired their CEO for an undeclared boinking of a female colleague and news reports are the board clawed back some $27million in compensation as a result. That must qualify as one of the most expensive lays in history.
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Stephen Friedman made 3 million insider trading goldman sachs stock while on the boards of Goldman Sachs AND the Federal Reserve. I reported him to the SEC on their insider trading web page, but I think they were taking a nap at the time.
Which is perfectly legal. Insiders can trade stock. They very limited on when they can trade it and they have to publicly announce the trades in advance. I'm sure someone as public as Stephen Friedman has lawyers who make sure all the required rules are followed.
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You think someone committed to ethics would divorce her husband? You really have no self-respect.
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He made the mistake of committing the crime without the power and position to get away with it.
His wife did the correct thing - had she not reported it, then when it was eventually noticed she'd still have been fired as well having to repay the profits with interest, be facing a potential 20 year stretch in jail, and up to a $5 million fine.
Instead she just dumped her idiot husband and can look for a new job able to point that out to any potential employer who asks. "This is how committed I am to ethical behaviour - my husband became an issue so I divorced him". I'd hire her. Most people would have tried to cover it up and hope to get away with it.
He did nothing wrong. Overhearing information is not insider trading. He didn't go out of his way to obtain information or breach any sort of trusted position. He has doing his thing and overheard it. It is not insider trading.
They are playing the cards perfectly. She knew she would get fired since BP had to do it. Then, she moved out and filed for divorce but it was probably carefully calculated.
It all depends on if he gets to keep the money or not.
Re:Well Shite (Score:5, Insightful)
File it under: no good deed goes unpunished.
Now anybody else who works at BP knows what to do when something like this happens: keep your trap shut.
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It would've come to their attention via the SEC anyway. This way she comes out looking better. She could've been vulnerable to legal action otherwise.
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File it under: no good deed goes unpunished.
Now anybody else who works at BP knows what to do when something like this happens: keep your trap shut.
Not quite. She got fired for mishandling company information and in the process passed on a potentially far more serious case of insider trading. There wasn't a "good deed" here. Ultimately it doesn't matter if she was spied on, she was the one who mishandled sensitive communication.
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Were regulators already investigating the trade before he confessed to his wife or did he just offer up the info of his own accord? Sounds like if he had just kept his mouth shut there was a chance he could have gotten away with it.
If she kept her mouth shut she could be implicated in a case of insider trading. She should be lucky to just be fired for mishandling sensitive info.
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I don't know anything about this case, but unless he had a habit of buying $2 million positions and selling them quickly, the transactions by themselves would have been suspicious. It doesn't sound like the family was rolling with the kind of money that would lead to that kind of trading normally.
The SEC is very aggressive about investigating this kind of thing. One of the anonymized/lightly-fictionalized stories from my employer's insider-trading ethics sessions is about someone who got caught from a sma
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Lol you have any idea how many major option purchases are made the day before a huge news release that causes a dramatic rise or drop in a stock? The SEC doesn't pursue jack.
Re: Well Shite (Score:2)
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And now, calls for RTO have just gotten stronger, because now companies can't trust that the NDA you signed and all that don't also apply to anyone else in your household.
I mean, if you're going to discuss things like this, now it's going to be in-person only to avoid issues.
Face it - your boss is going to use it on you the next time RTO comes around - your spouse/kids/friends/etc could overhear your meeting and commit securities fraud. Thus we require you to be in the office 5 days a week.
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And now, calls for RTO have just gotten stronger, because now companies can't trust that the NDA you signed and all that don't also apply to anyone else in your household.
Not really. Absolutely nothing has changed in this regard. People have had spouses long before COVID. WFH is a risk to be managed, no different than managing the risks in an office with leaving papers on your desk, or laptop computers unlocked.
While this is being billed as a WFH incident, fundamentally the risk doesn't disappear in the office. And that's before you consider the actual type of deal that is being talked about here is one that is executed largely on the road, in other people's offices, in lawy
Re: Well Shite (Score:2)
Taxes. (Score:2)
His brokerage was going to report his earnings to IRS. This should absolutely have raised a red flag. It's one thing if you have a history of trading within an industry or being a day trader. It's a whole other thing to win the lotto playing the stock market.
They were going to get caught, she saved herself a lot of serious questions be outing her husband.
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Meh, if she hadn't reported it the odds that anyone anywhere flagged this at the IRS are really low.
A few million here or there barely registers at the IRS. $1.8m profit isn't even a blip as long as he paid his taxes as per normal and dint try to hide it.
Statistically speaking audits are extremely rare and then they'd have to prove he used insider information which would be super hard if she didn't turn on him.
Remember, Al Capone went down for tax evasion, not any of his real crimes. Pay your taxes and no
Re:Taxes. (Score:5, Interesting)
Meh, if she hadn't reported it the odds that anyone anywhere flagged this at the IRS are really low. A few million here or there barely registers at the IRS. $1.8m profit isn't even a blip as long as he paid his taxes as per normal and dint try to hide it.
Warren Buffet making $1.8M profit on a stock sale when he is worth $100B will not raise any eyebrows. From what I can tell the couple's home was $630K so a $1.8M profit on the sale of one stock would have raised eyebrows at the IRS.
Statistically speaking audits are extremely rare and then they'd have to prove he used insider information which would be super hard if she didn't turn on him.
A guy out of nowhere buys 46,000 shares of stock which he sells for a massive profit a few weeks later. It just happens the company was acquired by his wife's company. I am not sure it would take a genius to figure out there was some sort of insider trading. By turning him in, I think she wanted no part of the punishment that she knew was coming.
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I've fucked with the IRS for a lot more than that just to see what would happen.
The only reason they even knew anything was up is I filed an adjustment to my taxes 2 years later for other reasons.
Seriously, the IRS really isn't some killer org full of hyenas tearing people apart. They're a bunch of blind folded pussycats who occasionally stumble into a bowl of milk.
Now, the California Franchise Tax Board is super scary. Do not fuck around on your California taxes. They go over shit with a fine toothed co
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I've fucked with the IRS for a lot more than that just to see what would happen. The only reason they even knew anything was up is I filed an adjustment to my taxes 2 years later for other reasons.
So you have purposely engaged in insider trading and admitting on the Internet. It is your rope.
Seriously, the IRS really isn't some killer org full of hyenas tearing people apart. They're a bunch of blind folded pussycats who occasionally stumble into a bowl of milk.
The IRS is going to note that $1.8M profit on a single stock that was earned in a few weeks. They are then going to hand that over to the SEC for further investigation.
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I didn't say I was insider trading. Try again.
The IRS is going to cash the check and move on.
What interactions have you had with the IRS beyond basic tax payments?
How many years in a row did you require tax attorneys to help you every April 15th and throughout the year?
Me? Both > 0. The IRS are pussies. $1,8m is a blip. You seem to have this fantasy vision of them as this all knowing Orwellian organization. They're just government employees looking to pension out like everyone else.
There's how movi
Re: Taxes. (Score:1)
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The IRS is going to cash the check and move on.
Sure. Whatever.
What interactions have you had with the IRS beyond basic tax payments? How many years in a row did you require tax attorneys to help you every April 15th and throughout the year? Me? Both > 0. The IRS are pussies. $1,8m is a blip. You seem to have this fantasy vision of them as this all knowing Orwellian organization. They're just government employees looking to pension out like everyone else.
That's a lot of grandstanding and puffery there. You sound like a guy that will brag he won "bigly" at something when he lost badly.
There's how movies tell you it works and how it really works.
You do know the IRS does not investigate insider trading right? That is the role of the SEC. Again, the IRS will merely hand over what they know to the SEC. You seem so intent on battling the IRS when that is not the agency that would prosecute this kind of crime.
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The SEC does just enough enforcement to make it look like they do something. I've been at companies where the C level were fucking around in really blatant ways clearly abusing the fuck out of insider information and flaunting it. Not a peep from the SEC. They don't give a shit about their mandate.
IRS? No fear. Pussycats.
SEC? Oh please, they make the IRS look scary.
California Franchise Tax Board: fucking terrifying, do not play games with those people. I'd rather be the best friend of the lead in a Fre
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The IRS wouldn't care as long as the taxes were paid, and since he played in national marketable securities, the broker is required to report full cost basis data, so there's no fudging the profit/loss. Except...this guy's 1099 probably didn't get generated until last week. (The trade was in 2023.) The broker's transmission doesn't get processed immediately, he files an extension in April 2024 to October 2024...yeah no, the IRS is not flagging insider trading on the basis of a 1099 filing, otherwise the tar
If Congress members can do it ... (Score:2)
... why shouldn't everybody else? And why blame remote work for it??
Why remote work is evil now. (Score:2)
And why blame remote work for it??
(Commercial Real Estate Industrial Complex) "Screw remote work. It's fucking ruining my hyperinflated market of overpriced and overtaxed dirt, and I KNOW you don't want my mostly-pointless-but-worth-Trump-trillions market to fail and crash your retirement and pension funds. Every pleb back to the office now. Or else. Car pollution? Go tell Greta to suck on a tailpipe. Going Green is for citizen losers."
Hope that clarifies it.
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It happened due to remote work.
Workplaces typically have a lot of security measures in place, at the very least a badge swipe, which a residence does not have.
BP just proved... (Score:1)
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That there's no such thing as a corporate good Samaritan. Next time, take that money and run. Do it well enough, and one just may prove to be executive role material and get promoted, or elected to Congress.
What good Samaritan? She mishandled sensitive information, put her company's deal in the firing line of an SEC investigation and got fired for it. That's ultimately lucky. If she didn't admit it the punishment could have been far worse as she could be directly implicated in insider trading if she didn't report it.
Re: BP just proved... (Score:2)
Not a remote work issue (Score:2)
He could have visited her at work for a lunch date and heard tons of stuff just standing in the office lobby.
If she took work papers or her laptop home from regular office hours, which is common and expected in high revenue industries, he could have seen the papers or something on her screen.
She could have talked in her sleep.
All sorts of things unrelated to wfh.
Firing her was stupid unless there was some regulatory violation that forces them to do so. No one else will ever come forward.
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He could have visited her at work for a lunch date and heard tons of stuff just standing in the office lobby.
This is fucking dumb. So is the rest of your post.
If she took work papers or her laptop home from regular office hours, which is common and expected in high revenue industries, he could have seen the papers or something on her screen.
In your hypothetical, how is the wife bringing home the laptop and papers and displaying something on the screen not the same as work from home? She's opened the laptop and spread papers everywhere. How is that not wfh?
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Because wfh is a specific thing where he is going to hear business meetings during the day as opposed to her working on random shit at night and meetings happening at the office. Have you ever had a real job?
I am definitely way smarter than you. Low bar met.
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Firing her was stupid unless there was some regulatory violation that forces them to do so. No one else will ever come forward.
She mishandled company information. Whether she took papers home and left them laying around, worked after hours, or spoke loudly in a meeting in an environment where a non-company member was present it's all the same. She fucked up bigtime and the SEC came looking for insider trading. Other people would come forward as well unless they want to join their spouse in jail.
This is definitely a remote work issue, the risks when working outside of the office are far greater especially when you handle sensitive i
Same crime different punishment (Score:2)
Re: Same crime different punishment (Score:2)
No they don't. "Insider" here means corporate insider. Congress does not have any "inside" knowledge of the company or its workings.
Now, whether there should be a different law applying to Congress is a good discussion. But pretending anyone is doing anything illegal and getting away with it does not advance that discussion.
Re: Same crime different punishment (Score:2)
Right. Congressmen generally have no meaningful relationship to corporate officers or stockholders. Your comment is providing support for my assertion.
Re: Same crime different punishment (Score:2)
Also, BTW, if the law worked how you think, most hostile takeovers would be illegal. Hostile takeovers generally involve buying up stock in secret to give you leverage over a company before forcing them to change strategy. According to your interpretation, this is ipso facto insider trading.
Re: Same crime different punishment (Score:2)
What if he had lost money? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What if he had lost money? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:What if he had lost money? (Score:4, Interesting)
What really puzzles me is (Score:2)
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How did he think he could get away with it?
He very likely did not think about that at all. The level of stupidity observable is astounding.
Extended Family (Score:2)
The real crooks use extended family.
The dumb criminals are the ones who get caught.
Re: Extended Family (Score:2)
I have invested and lost money in small biotech (Score:2)
companies, and one in particular, which are/were listed on stock exchanges where they turned out to be massive frauds effectively losing all the money with plenty of shady dealings, directly lying about trial progress on earnings calls all while C-suite gave themselves massive raises/bonuses, golden parachutes and a corrupt board of directors. Class action lawsuits that go nowhere, etc.
Where the fuck are the investigators for shit like that? The SEC being asleep at the fucking wheel is the reason why shor
Nothing to do with work from home (Score:2)
The wife did improperly secure a call that had confidential information in it. Had she done that at work, the same effects could have resulted. Working from home does not exclude you from sound information handling requirements.
But I see that "managers" deeply stuck in the past just cannot get with the times. No surprise.
Re: Nothing to do with work from home (Score:2)
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Indeed. Office work is the "the slaves must be supervised" mindset. WfH is "we care about results". To many people think work must be miserable and steal your time and be inconvenient or it is not work. Not so and not doing it that way is good for the enterprise as well.
Obviously, the usual slackers and idea-stealers and time-wasters cannot really hide anymore in WfH, so they are violently against it. But anybody that is effective is typically more effective in WfH while having a significantly better experi
Options (Score:2)
Silly rabbit (Score:2)
Re: Silly rabbit (Score:2)
Fired? (Score:2)
Lesson to anyone working at BP: never report financial malfeasance to your employer.
She should've kept her mouth shut (Score:2)
Nothing to do with remote work (Score:2)
could fuel arguments against working from home (Score:1)
I have a coworker whose wife works from home, like he does (some days), and within earshot of him, at what appears to be a largely phone based job.
Dude also does not seem to know or care about mute. So we frequently hear his wife talking - loudly - during our meetings.
Believe me, it's been tempting to extract some insider info from all her talking, as compensation for listening to her!
Just sayin' guys; you don't have to limit this scheme to your own wife. Think big!
Maybe he should be a Senator (Score:2)
Clearly what he did was 'wrong' but the easy solution is for him to be a US Senator trading on inside information. It's ok when the ruling class does it, it's not ok when the proles do it.
It wasn't insider trading, he did nothing wrong... (Score:2)
If I'm at a lunch and hear about a merge request, then go buy X shared of that company being brought, I did nothing wrong. I simply listened to the information I had, and then a made a choice accordingly, that's just sma
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LOL, as fun as big numbers sounds the $34billion is mostly made up of one single incident with multiple agencies queuing up to collect and has nothing to do with the number 400. And that was fines levied for something that happened 15 years ago, so not sure what that has to do with planet earth "right now". There's far worse shit going on "right now".
I for one wonder think that everyone who says we just need to make oil companies stop existing should have their power cut off, and their car keys taken away.
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Simple solution: Stop fining, start jailing.