Political Quotes

“Mr. President, to me, this illustrates the confusion over this issue. So I am pleased the committee not only reported Senator Brown's bill but unanimously adopted an amendment I offered with Chairman Lieberman that states clearly that Members and their staff are not exempt from insider trading laws. The need for this unambiguous statement can likely be traced back to the nature of the insider trading laws. As our committee has learned, our Nation's insider trading laws are not, generally speaking, based on statutes passed by Congress but rather on court precedents. As one of our witnesses, law professor Donna Nagy from Indiana University, pointed out during our hearing: Congress has never enacted a Federal securities statute that explicitly prohibits anyone from insider trading. . . . The explicit statutory ban on insider trading . . . is entirely absent in U.S. securities law. Rather, the SEC pursues insider trading cases under the general antifraud provisions of the Federal securities laws, most commonly section 10B of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and rule 10b5, a broad antifraud rule promulgated by the Commission. Therefore, what constitutes insider trading has largely been determined by the courts, including the Supreme Court, on a case-by-case basis.…”