The waiter in your example incurs no criminal or civil liability. He inadvertently learned of material non-public information from an insider. The insider did not intend to disclose the information to the waiter, and obtained no direct or indirect benefit from its disclosure. As the Supreme Court court stated in the Dirks case in determining whether there has been a breach of fiduciary duty "Thus, the test is whether the insider personally will benefit, directly or indirectly, from his disclosure. Absent some personal gain, there has been no breach of duty to stockholders. And absent a breach by the insider, there is no derivative breach" The court went on to say, "The elements of fiduciary duty and exploitation of nonpublic information also exist when an insider makes a gift of confidential information to a trading relative or friend. The tip and trade resemble trading by the insider himself followed by a gift of the profits to the recipient."
Similar case in the 99s http://classaction.findlaw.com/cases/securities/sec/sec1/files/1999/lr16220.html Ouch, if Mr Wong lost, he would have to pay back 2x. Ouch!
Martha's lawyers let her be interviewed by the SEC and FBI before they scrubbed her brain..... should have never happened.... bad strategy.......
So, if cheating were allowed, you'd cheat on every exam? If drinking and driving were allowed, you'd drive with a beer in your hand? If stealing were allowed you'd ransack Bill Gate's home? Beyond its illegality I believe it's immoral (should've said 'immoral' instead of 'amoral', a poor choice on my part) because it involves taking advantage of other market participants (yeah, that's you, me, those poor CBOE naked call writers and I guess in a way, institutions we love to hate like Merrill Lynch too) who are playing by the rules.
in washington you are "innocent until investigated." did you watched Syriana? if you are a foreigner i suspect it is even easier to freeze your assets indefinitely until you prove you're innocent. you are guilty until proven innocent.
the Wong's had never traded options in their account and even a straddle would have looked bad even though they could argue they knew something was up but didnt know which way....... had they bought only 10K shares, they likely could have skated by.....who knows
No, I personally wouldn't have done any of those things that you mentioned, but if I somehow knew or concluded that there was a good chance that a stock was going higher and I could legally buy it, I personally don't see this as immoral. It seems that this is immoral by some code to you, and I'd say that neither of us is right or wrong since morality is a highly personal and subjective thing. Under different codes of right/wrong one could view oil companies or government as immoral. If you were playing blackjack in a casino and accidently saw the next card on your turn would you hit or stand based on what you saw, or would you inform the dealer and ask for a shuffle?