The Second Circuit confirmed this week that a “meaningfully close personal relationship” is not required for insider-trading liability where a tipper discloses inside information as a gift with the intent to benefit the tippee. The June 25, 2018 decision on panel rehearing in United States v. Martoma (No. 14-3599) retreats from the panel’s original decision and no longer effectively overrules a portion of the Second Circuit’s 2014 decision in United States v. Newman, which had refused to infer a tipper’s intent to benefit a tippee in the absence of a meaningfully close relationship and a pecuniary or similarly valuable benefit in exchange for the tip. The new panel decision – again a 2-1 ruling – now holds that the requisite relationship described in Newman can be established by proving “either [i] that the tipper and tippee shared a relationship suggesting a quid pro quo or [ii] that the tipper gifted confidential information with the intention to benefit the tippee.”
