Quote from failed_trad3r:
is it legal to have somebody on the inside of a bear raiders team to give you inside information? i mean, the information is public knowledge anyway. i can imagine its mostly grey.
This is an opposite example but similar circumstances, you decide: From WIKI:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros
In 1988, Soros was interested in purchasing shares in French companies. The Socialist party had lost its majority of seats in the Assembly, and the new government under Jacques Chirac had instituted an aggressive privatization program. Many people considered shares in the newly privatized companies undervalued. During this period, a French financier named Georges Pébereau contacted one of Soros' advisors in an effort to assemble a group of investors to purchase a large amount of shares in Société Générale, a leading French bank that was part of the program.
The advisor reported to Soros that Pébereau's plan was ambiguous and included an implausible takeover plan, which later failed. On that advice, and without ever having met the financier, Soros decided against participating.[37] He did, however, move forward with his strategy of accumulating shares in four French companies: Société Générale, as well as Suez, Paribas and the Compagnie Générale d'Ãlectricité.
In 1989, the Commission des Opérations de Bourse (the French stock exchange regulatory authority) conducted an investigation of whether Soros' transaction in Société Générale should be considered insider trading. Soros had received no information from the Société Générale, and had no insider knowledge of the business, but he did possess knowledge that a group of investors was planning a takeover attempt. The COB concluded that the statutes, regulations and case law relating to insider trading did not clearly establish that a crime had occurred, and that no charges should be brought against Soros.[38]
Several years later, a Paris-based prosecutor reopened the case against Soros and two other French businessmen, disregarding the COB's findings. This resulted in Soros' 2005 conviction for insider trading by the Court of Appeals (he was the only one of the three to receive a conviction). The French Supreme Court confirmed the conviction on June 14, 2006, but reduced the penalty to the minimum.[39]
Punitive damages were not sought because of the delay in bringing the case to trial. Soros denied any wrongdoing, saying news of the takeover was public knowledge[40] and it was documented that his intent to acquire shares of the company predated his own awareness of the takeover.[39]
His insider trading conviction was upheld by the highest court in France on June 14, 2006.[39] In December 2006, he appealed to the European Court of Human Rights on various grounds including that the 14-year delay in bringing the case to trial precluded a fair hearing.[41] On the basis of Article 7 of the European Convention on Human Rights, stating that no person may be punished for an act that was not a criminal offense at the time that it was committed, the Court agreed to hear the appeal.[42] In October 2011, the court rejected his appeal in a 4â3 decision, saying that Soros had been aware of the risk of breaking insider trading laws.[43]