(HedgeCo.NET) \u2014 The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a Tennessee-based lawyer who served on the executive committee of the board of directors at Nashville-based Pinnacle Financial Partners with insider trading based on nonpublic information he learned about an impending merger.<\/p>\n
The SEC alleges that James C. Cope obtained more than $56,000 in ill-gotten gains by purchasing securities in Pinnacle\u2019s acquisition target, Avenue Financial Holdings, prior to the banks\u2019 joint public announcement later that month. According to the SEC\u2019s complaint, Cope learned confidential details about the planned merger during a board executive committee meeting on Jan. 5, 2016, and proceeded to place his first order to purchase Avenue Financial stock while that executive committee meeting was still in progress. He allegedly placed four more orders within an hour after the meeting ended.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe allege that Cope completely disregarded his responsibilities as an attorney and public company director and illegally seized the moment to purchase stock in an acquisition target after learning confidential, nonpublic information at a board executive committee meeting,\u201d said Walter Jospin, Director of the SEC\u2019s Atlanta Regional Office.<\/p>\n
The U.S. Attorney\u2019s Office for the Middle District of Tennessee today filed a parallel criminal case against Cope.<\/p>\n
Cope lives in Murfreesboro and resigned from Pinnacle\u2019s board in April, according to the SEC\u2019s complaint filed in federal district court in Nashville. The complaint charges Cope with violations of Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
(HedgeCo.NET) \u2014 The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged a Tennessee-based lawyer who served on the executive committee of the board of directors at Nashville-based Pinnacle Financial Partners with insider trading based on nonpublic information he learned about an impending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,3,16048],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-hedgeco-networks-press-releases","category-hedgeco-news","category-hedgecovest-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54955"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54956,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54955\/revisions\/54956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hedgeco.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}