SEC Files Insider Trading Charges Against Former AMD, Dell, Flextronics Employees

The SEC on Thursday filed civil charges Mark Anthony Longoria, an employee at AMD; Daniel DeVore, an executive at Dell; Flextronics executive Walter Shimoon; and Winifred Jiau, a consultant charged with leaking confidential information from Marvell Technology and other tech firms. In addition, the SEC has charged two Primary Global employees, Bob Nguyen and James Fleishman, with facilitating the transfer of information.

According to a Financial Times report on Thursday, lawyers for most of the defendants named in the filing have denied wrongdoing and some have already entered a plea of "not guilty."

Longoria, DeVore, Jiau and Shimoon allegedly offered Primary Global's investors inside information concerning Apple, Dell, Flextronics, and Marvell, according to the SEC.

"Company executives and other insiders moonlighting as consultants to hedge funds cannot blatantly peddle their company's confidential information for personal gain," said Robert Khuzami, director of the SEC's Division of Enforcement, in a statement. "These PGR consultants and employees schemed to facilitate widespread and repeated insider trading by several hedge funds and other investment professionals."

According to the SEC filing, Devore spoke with 15 Primary Global clients a month, while Shimoon participated in four to six calls a month with at least 11 hedge fund managers. The SEC said hedge funds and other investors who traded off those tips generated nearly $6 million in illicit gains.

The criminal case began in December, when federal attorneys in New York indicted Primary Global's tech industry consultants. The former insiders at AMD, Dell, Flextronics, and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co -- the last of which was not named in the SEC complaint -- allegedly offered secrets about their companies as well as Apple, RIM, and others.

At the time, solution providers reacting to the widespread insider trading scandal said they weren't surprised to learn of the insider trading scheme and suspect that such wrongdoing is not uncommon.