Supreme Court justices offered hope to both prosecutors and traders yesterday during arguments in the first insider trading case to come before the nation’s high court in two decades, the New York Times reported today. A ruling by the court could clarify one of the most hotly debated issues on Wall Street: what prosecutors must prove to secure insider trading convictions based on confidential tips. In their questioning, the justices grappled with where to draw the line. Even as they appeared sympathetic to the government’s interpretation of the high court’s past insider trading decisions, the justices were wary of radically expanding the government’s power and affording prosecutors too much of a free hand in these cases. The case now before the court, Salman v. United States, No. 15-628, comes from California and centers on the insider trading conviction of Bassam Salman in 2013. According to prosecutors, Salman placed profitable stock trades based on confidential information leaked by his future brother-in-law, Maher Kara, who had advance knowledge of corporate mergers because of his job in Citigroup’s health care investment banking group.
