SEC Says Perot Worker Made Insider Trades
WASHINGTON (
) -- The
Securities and Exchange Commission
has charged an employee of a
Perot Systems
(PER) - Get Report
affiliate with insider trading related to
Dell's
(DELL) - Get Report
$3.9 billion offer to acquire Perot earlier this week.
The SEC alleges Reza Saleh reaped about $8.6 million in illicit profits from "contracts based on material, non-public information that he learned in the course of his employment with, or duties for, two Perot-related private companies and Perot Systems. "
The SEC, in a statement, said Saleh made increasingly large purchases of call options of Perot, and sold all the call option contracts shortly after Dell announced Monday it planned to buy Perot.
Soon after being contacted by SEC staff, Saleh, a Texas resident, acknowledged to a Perot director that he knew about the impending transaction when he made the trades, the SEC says.
The SEC said it is seeking a court order to freeze Saleh's assets.
Dell's planned acquisition of Perot, for a hefty premium, is seen as an effort by the personal computer maker to ramp up its services business to compete with
IBM
(IBM) - Get Report
and
Hewlett-Packard
(HPQ) - Get Report
.
-- Reported by Joseph Woelfel in New York
.
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