The importance of this opportunity to observe where technical or scientific problems are before the court, as here, has been succinctly stated by the Supreme Court in Graver Tank & Mfg. Texas Gulf Sulphur Co. Brian JM Quinn. This Day In Market History: Texas Gulf Sulphur Company's Mineral Strike In 1942, lawmakers adopted the Rule 10b-5 in the Securities Exchange Act 1934 to allow its prosecution. TGS. (1934), p. 11. Similarly, corporate officers or directors may be liable for causing their corporation to engage in securities transactions. 1966), and cases cited in footnote 11 supra. The requirement that a statement may not be found misleading unless its issuance is actuated by a "wrongful purpose" might well have the effect of permitting the issuers of misleading statements to seek an advantage but to escape liability if the advantage fails to materialize to the degree contemplated, or cannot be demonstrated. Michigan Business & Entrepreneurial Law Review [Vol. Such inequities based upon unequal access to knowledge should not be shrugged off as inevitable in our way of life, or, in view of the congressional concern in the area, remain uncorrected. The novel problem in the instant case is to define the responsibility of officers when a directors' committee administering a stock option plan proposes of its own initiative to make options available to them and others at a time when they know that the option price, geared to the market value of the stock, did not reflect a substantial increment likely to be realized in short order and was therefore unfair to the corporation. Indeed, any such conclusions from a first drill core, if so announced by TGS, would undoubtedly have had a substantial effect on the market price of TGS stock and would have immediately brought forth both the wrath of, and injunction papers from, the Commission charging TGS with issuing false, misleading and unsupported statements to boost the price of the stock. SEC v. Texas Gulf Sulphur . 1967) (Corporation fraudulently arranged a merger so that one class of shareholders would receive much less than the other class which was comprised of officers and directors. Ethics, Markets, and the Legalization of Insider Trading The text of the article was approved by Mollison in Timmins on April 15th. 275, 11 L.Ed.2d 237 (1963). . 258 F.Supp. [18] Although the only insider who acted after the news appeared over the Dow Jones broad tape is not an appellant and therefore we need not discuss the necessity of considering the advisability of a "reasonable waiting period" during which outsiders may absorb and evaluate disclosures, we note in passing that, where the news is of a sort which is not readily translatable into investment action, insiders may not take advantage of their advance opportunity to evaluate the information by acting immediately upon dissemination. In each case, then, whether facts are material within Rule 10b-5 when the facts relate to a particular event and are undisclosed by those persons who are knowledgeable thereof will depend at any given time upon a balancing of both the indicated probability that the event will occur and the anticipated magnitude of the event in light of the totality of the company activity. (Great American brief, pp. Such a fact is a material fact and must be effectively disclosed to the investing public prior to the commencement of insider trading in the corporation's securities. WASHINGTON, Dec. 20 (AP) The Texas Gulf Sulphur Com pany and nine officials and em ployes were denied a hearing today by the Supreme Court in a case that may set a precedent governing tha. at 282. 296. If press releases have to read like prospectuses to guard against possible 10b-5 liability, it is safe to predict that they will quickly fall out of favor with corporate management. [10] Thus, material facts include not only information disclosing the earnings and distributions of a company but also those facts which affect the probable future of the company and those which may affect the desire of investors to buy, sell, or hold the company's securities. As to the sufficiency of the news release, the first issue would be what constitutes a "reasonable" investor. It is unfortunate that the atmosphere surrounding this important issue has been so colored and in the collective mind of the majority so contaminated by the comparatively insignificant stock purchase issue. It was the intent of Congress that all members of the investing public should be subject to identical market risks, which market risks include, of course the risk that one's evaluative capacity or one's capital available to put at risk may exceed another's capacity or capital.
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