U.S. Insider Trading Law Enforcement : Issues and Survey of SEC Actions from 2009 to 2013

This article surveys insider trading enforcement actions brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in the United States in the five-year period from 2009 to 2013. We first introduce the legal framework in which securities laws are enforced in the United States and then focus our analysis on the empirical data of insider trading cases collected from the SEC's news releases and its website. By categorizing actions surveyed, information about types of defendants, types of information used, illicit gain, case results, settlement, and subsequent criminal prosecutions brought by the Department of Justice are revealed and a more complete picture of the enforcement of insider trading law in the U.S is thus provided.Accordingly, this survey offers needed factual understandings to tackle several core issues in the U.S. securities law enforcement: the reason why the SEC is taking such a prime position in securities law enforcement, the phenomenon of extensive use of settlements and their decision process, and the advantages as well as problems brought by the current approach