Apple lawyer hired to stop insider trading pleads guilty to insider trading

Apple’s former director of corporate law admits to defrauding company

(AFP via Getty Images)

A lawyer for Apple whose role was to prevent insider trading has pled guilty to insider trading.

The Department of Justice states that Gene Levoff, a former corporate secretary and director of corporate law, “admitted engaging in an insider trading scheme that spanned five years”.

Mr Levoff used non-public information about Apple to trade the company’s stock between February 2011 and April 2016, defrauding Apple and its shareholders and bagging Mr Levoff approximately $227,000 on certain trades and avoiding losses of approximately $377,000 on others.

In addition, Mr Levoff was privy to information from Apple’s Disclosure Committee in his role as co-chairman, which reviewed and discussed the company’s draft quarterly and yearly earnings materials, as well as United States Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

“Levoff mined these materials for inside information about Apple to guide his decisions to buy and sell Apple stock ahead of its earnings announcements. When Apple posted strong revenue and net profit for a given financial quarter, he purchased large quantities of stock, which he later sold for a profit once the market reacted to the news,” the Department of Justice said in its release.

“When there were lower-than-anticipated revenue and net profit, Levoff sold large quantities of Apple stock, avoiding significant losses.”

Mr Levoff also ignored restrictions on ‘blackout periods’ – prohibitions on people with non-public information from engaging in trades – and repeatedly executed trades without the company’s knowledge of authorisation.

“On several occasions, Levoff executed trades within a blackout period after notifying other individuals subject to the restriction that they were prohibited from buying or selling Apple stock until the blackout period terminated.”

Mr Levoff will be sentenced on 10 November this year, with the maximum for fraud counts carrying a penalty of 20 years in prison and a $5 million fine.

Apple did not respond to The Independent’s request for comment.