Reebok Probe Stepped Up
The
Securities and Exchange Commission
named eight more defendants in the alleged insider trading case involving
Reebok
(RBK)
options, according to a source close to the investigation.
The SEC refused to comment on the investigation.
Earlier this month, a court order froze the online brokerage account of a retired Croatian woman, accusing her of insider trading in Reebok options ahead of news that the sneaker company had agreed to be acquired by
TheStreet Recommends
Adidas-Salomon
(ADSG)
in a deal worth $3.8 billion.
Sonja Anticevic, the 63-year-old retiree living in the city of Omis on the Croatian coast, told
Reuters
recently that she knows nothing about stocks or markets.
The SEC alleged that on Aug. 1 and Aug. 2, the account was used to buy 1,997 call options on Reebok shares for about $130,000. Reebok shares rose more than 30% after the deal with Adidas was announced, and the Anticevic account sold all its call options and realized profits of more than $2 million. Then, the SEC said, CyberTrader received instructions to transfer about $870,000 of the proceeds to a bank account in Salzburg.
Observers have speculated that someone else may have been making the trades using Anticevic's account.
Shares of Reebok were recently trading up 15 cents, or 0.3%, to $56.47.
