Trading on insider information never, ever ends well for anyone — especially if you’re trading on ill-begotten nonpublic information from your then-girlfriend, who at the time just so happened to be a Biglaw associate working from home during the pandemic.
Seth Markin, a former FBI trainee, was arrested and charged with insider trading in July 2022, accused of “abus[ing] his relationship of trust and confidence” with his ex-girlfriend, a law firm associate, to make trades ahead of a major pharmaceutical M&A deal.
In December 2023, Markin pleaded guilty to the charges, and last week, he was sentenced to 15 months behind bars. According to prosecutors, Markin illicitly obtained information from his then-girlfriend on Merck & Co.’s pending $1.85 billion acquisition of Pandion Therapeutics. Markin, together with a friend, Brandon Wong, made $1.4 million in profits thanks to trading on that inside information.
Markin’s ex, an associate at Covington & Burling, the firm that represented Merck, has not been accused of any wrongdoing. How did Markin obtain the insider information? The National Law Journal has the details:
The DOJ’s indictment of Markin detailed that the associate, who was working from home due to the pandemic, “had to take confidential work calls from her apartment, sometimes on speakerphone, and also kept work documents such as binders, notes, and legal pads out in the open in her apartment.”
The associate … “trusted that [Markin] would not look through her confidential work materials” and gave him a key fob to access her building, the DOJ said.
U.S. Attorney Damian Williams offered a statement on the matter, saying, “Seth Markin betrayed the trust of his then-girlfriend when he misappropriated confidential information, traded based on that information, and tipped several friends and family members.”
On top of being sentenced to spend time behind bars, Markin was ordered to forfeit more than $82,000 as well as serving three years of supervised release. The SEC has filed a related civil enforcement action against him.
Big Law Associate’s Ex-Boyfriend Sentenced to 15 Months for Trading on Firm’s Deal Info [New York Law Journal]
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter and Threads or connect with her on LinkedIn.
