Page 28 - 期货和衍生品行业监管动态（2024年4月）

期货和衍生品行业监管动态

The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced insider trading

charges against Andreas “Andy” Bechtolsheim, the founder and Chief Architect of

Silicon Valley-based technology company Arista Networks, Inc. To settle the SEC’s

charges, Bechtolsheim agreed to pay a civil penalty of nearly $1 million.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Bechtolsheim misappropriated material

nonpublic information regarding the impending acquisition of Acacia

Communications, Inc., a manufacturer of highspeed optical interconnect products.

The SEC alleges that Bechtolsheim, who was Arista Networks’s chair at the time,

learned of Acacia’s impending acquisition on July 8, 2019, through his and Arista

Networks’s longstanding relationship with another multinational technology company

that was also considering acquiring Acacia and consulted with Bechtolsheim

concerning the potential acquisition. Immediately after learning this information,

Bechtolsheim allegedly traded Acacia options in the accounts of a close relative and

an associate. The next day, July 9, 2019, before the market opened, Acacia and Cisco

announced that Cisco had agreed to acquire Acacia for $70 per share. That day,

Acacia’s stock price increased by 35.1 percent. According to the SEC’s complaint,

Bechtolsheim’s trading generated combined illegal profits of $415,726 in the accounts

of his relative and associate.

“We allege that Bechtolsheim, while serving as the chairman of a publicly traded

company, abused the trust of a longtime business contact who had shared highly

sensitive information about an imminent corporate acquisition,” said Joseph G.

Sansone, Chief of the SEC’s Market Abuse Unit. “We will continue to pursue and

prosecute misconduct by trusted insiders at all levels of the corporate hierarchy.”

Without admitting or denying the allegations in the SEC’s complaint, which was

filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, Bechtolsheim

settled the SEC’s charges by agreeing to be barred from serving as an officer or

director of a public company for five years and to pay a civil monetary penalty of

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