Buying back shares and insider Trading Imagine the CEO of a major corporation knows that in a few days knows the corporation will be issuing an earnings report that will be above expectations. As such, he believes the price of the stock will go up significantly. If at this point, would it be legal for the corporation to buy back some of its own shares? It seems to me that it should be. Note: I live in the United States and I am asking about the laws of the United States.
Generally no. Trading on the basis of non-public &quot;inside&quot; information is usually a crime in the US (and in many other places as well, although the details will vary.) Exactly what constitutes &quot;inside information&quot; and an unlawful trade based on it can be complex, but if the trade is or might well have been influenced by information not publicly available, it may well be illegal. Normally in such cases the company's legal counsel or compliance officer will issue a statement to relevant corporate officers that neither the company nor those officers who are &quot;insiders&quot; may trade in the company's stock until after the information becomes public and is know to the market in general. The exact terms will vary depending on the specific facts. If the person making the decision to do a buyback is not aware of the non-public information, and did not consult the CEO or anyone who did know, the trade might not be unlawful. But such trades are normally approved at the Board of Directors level, so the CEO would be aware of them.
It’s not insider trading Insider trading refers to leveraging private information that you only know because of your “insider” position. Front running is using information that is publicly available, albeit for a fee. Buying information that anyone can buy is not insider trading.
Here's a constitutionally plausible answer: he isn't going to threaten to not repay bondholders, thereby not implicating the 14th Amendment. All I said is that if interest rates go up, we'll have a chance to buy back bonds at a discount, which is standard [...] Certainly I'm not talking about renegotiating with creditors.
Subsidiary and supplier are separate cases. For a controlled subsidiary: full duties, full responsibility, you could (and someone has) fill a textbook with the ins and outs but this is the answer. For a supplier: it is under the law much more complicated, but if a client of mine came to me with this question my answer would be pretty much the same: if the evidence is truly credible you should cut ties and then conduct an FCPA review to determine whether there is any obligation to disclose.
The short answer is that a few individual trades would be legal (e.g. if you sell some to a friend), but doing so on a regular basis for profit (e.g. offering a sale price and a bid price to all comers) would not unless you get the appropriate licenses and comply with relevant laws. Doing this is onerous. Any kind of "money services business" is subject to federal regulation. The federal definition is a business trading more than $1,000 per day, so in theory as long as you keep below that you wouldn't have to worry about federal law. In practice you might find yourself having to prove to the Feds that you have not exceeded the threshold on any day in the past. There is also a separate licence regime for Virginia which you must also comply with. Finally, if you sell Bitcoins to someone when you have a reason to suspect that they are planning to do something illegal with them then you are breaking the law. Edit: While its not strictly a legal issue, some people who have traded Bitcoins outside of recognised exchanges have had their bank accounts closed because the activity has triggered the bank's money-laundering detectors. Edit 2: All the above applies if you are trading directly with people who you found on something like localbitcoins.com. Trade via an exchange such as BitStamp is legal: all the AML and KYC regulations are their problem not yours. You merely have to provide the necessary identification to open an account.
There is no such thing as an "implicit" out clause in a contract like this. The onus was clearly on them to consider all the facts before agreeing to lock in an interest rate. The facts have not changed since the lock and you did not misrepresent the facts so they should honor their agreement or pay you damages. Your options are to take the deal, get a new deal elsewhere or take them to court to enforce the deal or recover damages. Those aren't particularly great options but that's the situation.
You are mistaken: The U.S. governments (both federal, and states that impose income tax) assert a right to tax both: Income earned within their jurisdiction (e.g., "on their soil"), and Income earned by citizens (or residents, in the case of states). So it is perfectly legal for a resident U.S. citizen to operate a foreign business entity, earn profit, pay himself, and even bank the money overseas. However, a resident in such a situation would be in violation of tax law if he failed to report his interest in the foreign entity and his earnings, as prescribed by the IRS, on his tax filings.
Under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, there has to be an agreement for there to be price fixing. If the parties do not agree to engage in price-fixing or other anti-competitive behavior, there is no violation. There does not needed to be a written, explicit contract memorializing the agreement, but there does need to be more than just encouragement to change prices. Telling one person to charge more isn't price-fixing, because the person making the suggestion could then just leave his own prices in place and enjoy the competitive advantage. But if that person were to say, "We should raise our prices," and then they both did, you'd probably have a pretty good Sherman Act case.