Insider Trading At Amazon? Ex-Finance Manager Enriched Her Family With Confidential Information, SEC Says

The Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday charged a former finance manager at Amazon with insider trading, alleging she used confidential information at the company to enrich her family. Laksha Bohra was previously employed at Amazon’s tax department, where she worked on the company’s quarterly and annual earnings reports.

Bohra passed along highly confidential information about Amazon’s financial performance to her husband, Viky Bohra. He then traded on this information using 11 accounts, with his father, Gotham Bohra, also in on the scheme.

The Bohras allegedly made approximately $1.4 million from the unlawful trading between January 2016 and July 2018. All three Bohras were charged with violating federal securities laws, with the SEC filing its complaint in Seattle.

"We allege that the Bohras repeatedly and systematically used Amazon's confidential information for their own gain,” said Erin Schneider, the director of the SEC’s San Francisco Regional Office. "Employees with access to confidential, potentially market-moving corporate information may not use that information to enrich themselves, their friends, or their families."

Other big tech companies have also been affected by insider trading. In 2014, a former Microsoft employee received a two-year prison sentence after he and his partner made more than $400,000 in an insider trading scheme.

The federal government first began cracking down on insider trading in the 1930’s, following the stock market crash of 1929. The Securities Act of 1933 was meant to protect investors from fraud and bring stability to the financial markets after unprecedented turbulence.