officers, directors and other key employees on the basis of information not .
available to the public." The Supreme Court officially recognized the.
classical .
theory in the 1980 case U.S. v. Chiarella. U.S. v. Chiarella was the first .
criminal case of insider trading. Vincent Chiarella was a printer who put .
together the coded packets used by companies preparing to launch a tender offer.
for other firms. Chiarella broke the code and bought shares of the target .
companies based on his knowledge of the takeover bid. He was eventually caught,.
and his case clarified the terms of what has come to be known as the classical .
theory of insider trading. However, the Supreme Court reversed his conviction .
on the grounds that the existing insider trading law only applied to people who.
owed a fiduciary responsibility to those involved in the transaction. This sent.
the SEC scrambling to find a way to hold these "outsiders" equally.
accountable. .
As a result, the misappropriation theory evolved over the last two decades. It .
attempted to include these "outsiders" under the broad classifications.
of .
insider trading. An outsider is a "person not within or affiliated with the.
corporation whose stock is traded." Before this theory came into existence,.
only people who worked for or had a direct legal relationship with a company .
could be held liable. Now casual investors in possession of sensitive .
information who were not involved with the company could be held to the same .
standards as CEOs and directors. This theory stemmed from a 1983 case, Dirks v.
SEC, but the existence of the misappropriation theory had not been truly .
recognized until U.S. v. O'Hagan in 1995. The case - U.S. v. O'Hagan - involved.
an attorney at a Minneapolis law firm. He learned that a client of his firm .
(Grand Met) was about to launch a takeover bid for Pillsbury, even though he .
wasn't directly involved in the deal. The lawyer then bought a very sizable .
amount of Pillsbury stock options at a price of $39.