The Street.com — Securities law guru John Coffee is one of the more outspoken opponents of insider trading. But that hasn’t deterred him from helping hedge funds beat the rap on those charges.
The oft-quoted Columbia University Law School professor has often testified before Congress on the evils posed by insider trading and other securities offenses. Just two months ago, Coffee told the Senate Judiciary Committee that insider trading was on the rise in the U.S. and that prosecutors needed to be more aggressive in prosecuting rogue traders.
But even as Coffee decried what he called an “uneven pattern” of insider trading prosecutions, he was working behind the scenes advising hedge funds, drawing scrutiny in a lengthy regulatory investigation into the market for PIPEs, or private investments in public equity.
