SiliconBeat

An employee of Restoration Hardware must appear before the SEC to give sworn testimony in its investigation into possible insider trading involving her husband, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled today.

In May, Lena Yan, Read the rest of this entry »

The Securities and Exchange Commission said today it has filed an action to force Oakland resident Lena Yan, an analyst in the finance department at Restoration Hardware, to provide sworn testimony in its investigation into possible insider trading involving her husband in Restoration Hardware stock in November 2007 shortly before news of its acquisition became public.

According to a filing the SEC made today, Yan’s husband, Read the rest of this entry »

Topic A for discussion this morning are the insider trading charges filed by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission against former “Dancing With The Stars” also-ran Mark Cuban. Oh, and he’s also the guy who owns the Dallas Mavericks, wants to buy the Chicago Cubs, and has an ego the size of Silicon Valley.

The complaint filed Monday contains the good, old-fashioned kind of allegations. You can read the full complaint here. In essence, the SEC claims that Cuban was an investor in the search engine Mamma.com. Back in 2004, the company briefed him on plans to issue a new round of stock, which would likely dilute shareholder value and cause the stock price to drop. Also, Cuban was ordered not to tell a soul.

According to the SEC, Cuban called his broker and told him to dump his Mamma.com shares. The stock dropped almost 10 percent the next day, and Cuban saved about $750,000. Nice (allegedly).

You can read the full complaint here. But Gawker provides the highlights here.

One of the tastiest morsels from the complaint comes from a conversation between Cuban and the Mamma.com CEO:

“The CEO prefaced the call by informing Cuban that he had confidential information to convey to him, and Cuban agreed that he would keep whatever information the CEO intended to share with him confidential. The CEO, in reliance on Cuban’s agreement to keep the information confidential, proceeded to tell Cuban about the PIPE offering. Cuban became very upset and angry during the conversation, and said, among other things, that he did not like PIPES because they dilute the existing shareholders. At the end of the call, Cuban told the CEO “Well, now I’m screwed. I can’t sell.”

But then, apparently, he did sell. Allegedly.

And what does Mr. Cuban have to say about all of this? Read the rest of this entry »

When Ciriaco “Eric” Rivor of Millbrae learned in mid-2007 that his company, the Corte Medera-based home furnishing retailer Restoration Hardware, was about to be acquired by a private equity firm at a “substantial premium”, the former finance vice president passed the confidential, non-public information to friends Emmanuel Axiaq of San Carlos, Calif., and Steven Lusardi of San Jose, according to allegations leveled by the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday. Rivor also told Emmanuel Axiaq to pass the information to his father, Francis Axiaq of Millbrae, according to the SEC complaint.

That last bit of advice was probably especially unwise, in retrospect. Read the rest of this entry »

The former president and chief executive of Genesis Microchip and a friend of his were charged by the Securities and Exchange Commission with insider trading in the company’s shares in the midst of confidential merger negotiations between Genesis and STMicroelectronics, one of the world’s largest semiconductor companies.

Genesis CEO and San Jose resident Elias Antoun allegedly bought shares of his companies stock in the brokerage accounts of a relative and a friend shortly after the company received a letter of intent Read the rest of this entry »

With its stock price bumping around 2-and-a-half year lows and its CEO quitting, SourceForge’s executives started doing something this month they’ve never done before: buy shares of the company’s stock on the open market. Read the rest of this entry »