Peter Altman Participates in Daily Journal Podcast on Supreme Court’s Salman Decision

Peter Altman, senior counsel in Akin Gump’s litigation practice, spoke with Daily Journal for its Weekly Appellate Report podcast. The topic was a recent Supreme Court ruling in Salman v. U.S., a securities fraud appeal regarding insider tips conveyed to close friends and relatives.

Altman, who formerly worked in the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Division of Enforcement, first gave some background on the case and discussed who the various parties were. He then discussed a 1983 Supreme Court case, Dirks v. SEC, which established “the basic template for tipper-tippee liability” in insider trading cases, and 2014 a case from the 2nd Circuit, U.S. v, Newman, noting how both of them pertain to the Salman case.

Altman noted that the government saw Salman as “a case to expand the insider trading law,” asking the Supreme Court that “a gift of confidential information to anyone, not just the trading relative or friend, that that can be enough to prove securities fraud.” In the end, he said, the Court did not go as far as the government would have liked. As a result, Altman said the Salman decision leaves some important questions unanswered.