If I discover information about a company through personal investigation can I act on it without being guilty of insider trading? Let's say I'm a skilled PI who has, through detailed investigation followed a paper trail back and discovered that Soylent Green is people! (err..spoiler warning?) I am now aware of information that is not public knowledge, but I have not 'stolen' it from a company, as I have generated this knowledge through personal investigation and research. However, I was only able to prove something was wrong after capturing photos while doing surveillance of a suspected location, so my knowledge is not just deduction from publicly available records. I'm now in the process of trying to get the local news agency to take me seriously and warn everyone about the news. However, while I do this I also decide to short sell Soylent LTD, after all I need to cover my own business expenses somehow. If it's relevant let's say I have strong evidence that my investigation and leaking of the knowledge was originally done out of an honest intent to warn people about the company, since intent of leaking information seems to matter in case law (the 2014 court case). Could I be found guilty of unlawful insider trading for short selling the companies stocks?
This is not insider trading To be an insider in the USA you must be a company officer, director or a beneficial owner of more than 10% of a class of the company's equity securities. You aren’t any of those. Or you are an “insider” if you trade based on non-public information in breach of a position of trust. The company’s lawyers and accountants, for example. Or if you obtain the information from an “insider” where the insider is behaving unlawfully, leaking it to you for example. You are not an insider if you receive non-public information outside a position of trust, for example, if you hear the CEO and COO discussing precisely why they won’t eat the company’s product at the table next to you in the cafe. In any event, the information you describe is public assuming your “investigation and research” was conducted lawfully. For example, by going through their trash or observing their operations from a place where you are permitted to be. Just because it took a lot of effort to collect it and analyse it to reach your conclusion doesn’t make it non-public.
Possibly, but probably not. Personal data is any information relating to an identifiable person. The statement “Alice is sick” is information, and relates to Alice who is identifiable. Processing personal data is not inherently illegal, but does require a legal basis per Art 6 GDPR, such as a legitimate interest. Here, the information is data concerning health, processing of which is prohibited unless one of the explicit exceptions applies (such as explicit consent, or legal obligations). So it is legitimate to have concerns on whether disclosure of this information would be legal. If these rules were breached, that would be on the data controller. Here, the company would be the data controller, not Bob (unless Bob acted against training and instructions and processed the personal data for his own purposes). However, GDPR probably doesn't apply to this specific interaction. In Art 2(1), the GDPR says that This Regulation applies to the processing of personal data wholly or partly by automated means and to the processing other than by automated means of personal data which form part of a filing system or are intended to form part of a filing system. A conversation itself would not be subject to GDPR rules – there is no filing system or similar structured data involved. What GDPR would prevent is to keep records on Alice's health status, but doesn't necessarily prevent talking about it informally. For example, the EUR 35.3M fine against H&amp;M in Germany was imposed not because managers talked with employees about personal matters, but because they then maintained detailed files about those personal matters. Data controllers are responsible though for ensuring security and compliance through appropriate technical and organizational measures (TOMs). TOMs can include things such as non-disclosure agreements and training for staff. If Bob acts against such training, there could be repercussions along the Bob–Company employment relationship. But that would mostly be an employment law thing, not so much a GDPR thing.
In the UK and USA (and I imagine other jurisdictions) there have been laws that explicitly provide for orders obliging entities to (A) provide access or information and (B) keep the order secret. For example, in the USA the Stored Communications Act, Fair Credit Reporting Act and Right to Financial Privacy Act authorise the FBI to issue National Security Letters (Wikipedia, EFF, EPIC, Lawfare). These are an administrative subpoena, without prior approval from a judge, for meta-information (e.g. phone numbers dialed or email recipients addressed but not the content) of communications relevant to national security investigations. They typically contain a non-disclosure requirement prohibiting the recipient of the NSL from disclosing its existence or the FBI's demands. There have been challenges on First Amendment grounds to the non-disclosure aspect but, so far as I'm aware, they have all ultimately failed. Some of their non-disclosure requirements may eventually expire under other laws. In response, so-called 'warrant canaries' (Wikipedia) have been developed (and gone a bit further than the original idea) - these are intended to allow entities to relatively passively warn of such an order having been received if not the detail of the order. However, they can be legally risky in that they might be seen by a court as trying to circumvent the non-disclosure requirement and therefore breaking it.
See the answer to this question. It is remotely possible that it will show up, but the new S.C. law also says that an employer cannot use that information. On the other hand, that law is not yet effective (it becomes effective Dec. 27 2018), so for the rest of the year, the information could be used, if an employer obtains is. There is a law-enforcement exception that arrests can always be used against you if you apply for a law-enforcement related job. Under the current law (has been in effect for a while), the record is "under seal", so revealing the record in the course of a background check would be a violation of the relevant court order. The law specifies a punishment for illegal disclosure: A person who intentionally violates this subsection is guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction, must be fined not more than one hundred dollars or imprisoned not more than thirty days, or both. however, accidental disclosure is not a crime. You might think that you could at least sue them for accidental disclosure, but the law also says Unless there is an act of gross negligence or intentional misconduct, nothing in this section gives rise to a claim for damages against the State, a state employee, a political subdivision of the State, an employee of a political subdivision of the State, a public officer, or other persons. If the government person who releases the information intentionally does so, you can sue. Perhaps an accidental release could be found to be grossly negligent: that would depend on the circumstances.
While German law indeed requires providing correct contact information it does not require the recipient to answer queries. It is there so that you can submit legal notifications. In your case I wouldn't be so sure that the information is not correct. However, even if the contact information is incorrect, there is not much you can do about it. This is reserved to the following groups by § 8 Abs. 3 UWG: every competitor; associations with legal personality which exist for the promotion of commercial or of independent professional interests, so far as a considerable number of entrepreneurs belong thereto, and which distribute goods or services of the same or similar type on the same market, provided such associations are actually in a position, particularly in terms of their personnel, material and financial resources, to pursue the tasks, under their memoranda of association, of promoting commercial or independent professional interests, and so far as the contravention affects the interests of their members; qualified entities that prove that they are entered on the list of qualified entities pursuant to section 4 of the Injunctions Act or on the list of the Commission of the European Communities pursuant to Article 4 of Directive 98/27/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 May 1998 on injunctions for the protection of consumer interests (OJ Number L 166 page 51); Chambers of Industry and Commerce or Craft Chambers. Unless you are a competitor you are out of luck. The hoster or other providers can't do anything and don't need to, as they are not required to check legality of their user's websites. It doesn't really matter where you are by the way for these laws.
No. In the United States, lying is not a crime. Unless it is done: under oath (in which case it's called perjury) or to a law enforcement agent conducting an investigation (in which case it's called obstruction). There are also the civil torts of slander (oral) and libel (written) if someone lies and damages the reputation or business interests of a person or company. Collectively, and without distinction, these are called defamation. Lying also has a close cousin &mdash; the civil tort of fraud &mdash; which usually applies to inducement into a transaction or a contract. There are also consumer protection statutes (federal and state) that deal with truth in advertising, truth in lending, lemon laws, etc. But those are primarily civil statutes and the last two are pretty far afield from your question. But none of that applies to the Facebook case you described. So, no.
There are two different kinds of transactions that are implicated by your question. The first is a stock stock split. This simply turns 1 share into X shares and trades out existing shares for new shares. This has no economic effect and is simply done for the convenience of trading shares for prices that are easy to work work on a practical basis, for example, in software listing stock prices. The second is an initial public offering, which, confusingly, means not just the first time that newly issued stock is sold to the public by the issuer, but any time that newly issued stock is sold to the public by the issuer. The possibility of dilution is real in this situation. Abuse of that possibility is primarily managed through the fact that the Board of Directors whose approval is required to issue new stock and sell it to the public, have a fiduciary duty to the company to sell the new stock at a price commensurate with the fair market value of the currently outstanding stock. If the Board of Directors breaches that fiduciary duty to the company, then shareholders may bring what is called a derivative action to enforce the duty that the Board of Directors breached to the company. Lawsuits of this kind make up a significant share of the total volume of cases in the Delaware Chancery Court, a state court in the U.S. state of Delaware where most large publicly held companies are organized. These cases are also often litigated in the state courts of New York State and of California, both of which are also popular states for publicly held companies to be incorporated in. Also, keep in mind that the Board of Directors is elected by the existing shareholders, and while most publicly held companies have &quot;Soviet style ballots&quot; in director elections from a pre-set slate of candidates, a proxy fight to run a competing slate of candidates is allowed is existing shareholders are unhappy with their performance. Normally, as a matter of practical reality, the Board of Directors is quite responsive to coalitions of shareholders with substantial holdings who care about the value of their shares as opposed to political issues only tangentially related to the company. A Board of Directors is usually aligned with the interests of the existing shareholders and doesn't have an incentive to screw them over by diluting the value of their shares. People who don't like how a Board is running a publicly held company usually sell their shares and invest in some other company instead, rather than risk being diluted. SEC approval and approval from state securities regulators is also required for an initial public offering (including a subsequent offering of new shares by a public company) but that approval requires only full disclosure of the transaction and the company's financial situation, and cannot be denied on the basis that the transaction is unfair to existing or to new shareholders on account of the price of the offer. It is allowed because the whole purpose of a publicly held company is to raise capital to engage in business activities. When a publicly held company needs more money to do something it has several choices: An initial public offering of corporate bonds. An initial public offering of new stock. A private loan from a bank or affluent individual. Options 1 and 3 increase the debt to equity ratio of the company and increase the company's risk of default on existing loans, while imposing a minimum cashflow requirement that it may not be able to fulfill in the event of a short term economic disruption (like the current pandemic). In the case of a very big investment, there may simply be no lender who has the capacity to lend enough money privately. Option 2 makes the company more creditworthy and can be economically desirable to existing shareholders is the shares are sold at a price that makes it a cheaper source of capital than borrowing money at the interest rates currently available to the company. If the capital raised makes possible an investment that increases profits for the company by a greater percentage than the existing shareholder's interests are diluted, it is a good deal for existing shareholders.
Revealing such information might be an example of an Invasion of Privacy tort, specifically &quot;Disclosure of Private Facts&quot;. Not all US states recognize this tort. The Findlaw page on &quot;What is Invasion of privacy&quot; says: Public disclosure of private facts laws protect your right to keep the details of your private life from becoming public information. For example, publicizing facts about a person's health, sexual conduct, or financial troubles is likely an invasion of privacy. While state laws vary, the general elements of this tort are as follows: 1.The defendant publicized a matter regarding the private life of the plaintiff; 2.The publicized matter would be highly offensive to a reasonable person; and 3.It is not of a legitimate concern to the public. To publicize a private matter, laws generally require that the private information is disseminated in such a way that it is substantially certain to become public knowledge A linked sub-page of the above says: Generally, disclosure to one or two people does not constitute a public disclosure unless there is an implication that the information should be spread around. The Digital Media law Project's page on &quot;Publication of Private Facts&quot; says much the same thing. The 1976 law review article &quot;The First Amendment Privilege and Public Disclosure of Private Facts&quot; by Samuel Soopper Discusses this tort in some detail, although it mostly focuses on publications by the news media where first amendment issues are in play. It seems as if such a tort case might be hard to bring because of the small number of people to whom the fact was disclosed. A claim for Intentional Infliction of Emotional Distress might fit such a situation, but this would depend on the specific facts of the case, and again, on the state where the issue would be tried. In any case, this would not be a criminal action, and a lawyer would have to be consulted to better determine if a civil action could be pursued.