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PANEL: THE SEC’S PERSPECTIVE† 

PROFESSOR JOHN C. COFFEE, JR.1: We once again have an all-star panel.  I am amazed 
that we can get this powerful of a panel together.  We have, to my right, two directors of the 
[Security Exchange Commission (“SEC”)]’s Division of Enforcement, both retired, or at least out 
of that side of the battle.  And they bring other perspectives too, because Stanley Sporkin2 moved 
on to other roles, like being a judge and general counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency 
(“CIA”) and other small, modest tasks.  Richard Walker3 has moved from being director of [SEC] 
enforcement to being a general counsel for the investment banking group of Deutsche Bank, and 
we are going to talk about the problems of general counsels in large, integrated financial firms: 
what they need to do and how proactive they need to be today.  To my left, we have Judge Denise 
Cote4 who, in addition [to her current role], has been a prosecutor and has become very familiar 
with SEC enforcement actions during her career on the bench.  Dan Hawke5 is both head of the 
SEC Market Abuse Unit and also the regional administrator for the city of Philadelphia, a city of 
brotherly love where no one would ever violate the law.  Steve Crimmins6 is going to occupy the 
role as our defense counsel.  We are going to be using some hypotheticals that are meant to have 
something vaguely in common with a now-pending criminal case involving hedge fund 
employees of Diamondback Capital and Level Global.7  This is the newer world of insider 
trading, involving not just people passing secret messages to each other, but the world of more 
institutionalized expert network firms, where the mechanism is more visible, but the same 
information appears to be very nonpublic. 
 

                                                
† Excerpts taken from panel discussion at the Columbia Law School Symposium: The Past, Present, and Future of 

Insider Trading: A 50th Anniversary Re-Examination of Cady, Roberts and the Revolution It Began (Nov. 16, 2012).  
The editors of the Columbia Business Law Review have added explanatory footnotes where deemed appropriate. 

1 Adolf A. Berle Professor of Law, Director of the Center on Corporate Governance, Columbia Law School. 
2 Former general counsel, CIA, 1981–86; district judge, United States District Court, District of Columbia, 1985–

2000. 
3 General counsel, Corporate and Investment Banking Division, Deutsche Bank. 
4 Senior judge, United States District Court, Southern District of New York. 
5 Chief, Market Abuse Unit, SEC Division of Enforcement; director, SEC Philadelphia Regional Office. 
6 Partner, K&L Gates LLP. 
7 In November 2010, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (“FBI”) raided the offices of hedge funds Diamondback 

Capital Management and Level Global Investors as a part of a broader criminal investigation into the use of so-called 
expert networks in the securities industry.  See XL Specialty Ins. Co. v. Level Global Investors, L.P., 874 F. Supp. 2d 
263, 266 (S.D.N.Y. 2012) (summarizing key facts in preliminary injunction proceeding regarding liability insurer’s 
advancement of defense costs).  Within a year, federal prosecutors charged seven directors, officers, and employees 
with trading while knowingly in possession of material nonpublic information.  Of those seven individuals, five 
pleaded guilty, while the two remaining defendants were convicted by a jury of fraud and conspiracy in December 
2012.  Peter Lattman & William Alden, 2 Former Hedge Fund Managers Found Guilty in Insider Trading Case, N.Y. 
TIMES DEALBOOK (Dec. 17, 2012, 5:21 PM), http://dealbook.nytimes.com/ 2012/12/17/2-former-hedge-fund-managers-
found-guilty-in-insider-trading-case/.