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Legal Ethics

Ex-GC to Be Sentenced this Month for Insider Trading

Posted Jan 8, 2008, 08:19 am CDT
By Debra Cassens Weiss

The former general counsel of semiconductor maker Amkor Technology Inc. faces up to five years in prison when he is sentenced Jan. 28 for insider trading.

At one time, Kevin Heron was in charge of insider trading compliance for the company. But he was convicted July 19 based on evidence he made almost $290,000 in profits while trading in Amkor stock, Corporate Counsel reports. Prosecutors contended he traded in advance of adverse earnings reports and an announcement of a planned joint venture with IBM.

The government cited an e-mail that Heron sent to a friend in which he asserted—wrongly, it turns out—this his small trades would escape notice, the legal newspaper reports. "How is anyone to know if you sell 1,000 shares?" he wrote. "I mean think about it, the market trades over a billion shares a day, who gives a rat’s ass if you sell 1,000?"

Heron’s lawyers have filed a motion for acquittal or a new trial with the Philadelphia federal judge overseeing the case. Lawyer Joseph Aronica of Duane Morris says the information Heron possessed wasn’t material and that he didn’t trade on it.

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