• Gibson Dunn, Supreme Court Vacates Second Circuit Ruling Expanding Insider Trading Liability

If the Second Circuit concludes that, after Kelly, confidential government information does not constitute property, the Court could reverse the convictions on this ground while leaving unaddressed its prior holding that there is no personal benefit requirement in Title 18 insider trader cases. As the petitioners warned the Supreme Court, prosecutors in this scenario would likely treat this silence as a green light to continue to charge insider-trading crimes where there is little to no evidence of a personal benefit to the tipper, or tippee knowledge of that benefit. Of course, under such circumstances, prosecutors would not have the benefit of Blaszczak to rely on, and thus there could be litigation risk to the government depending on the facts of the particular case.