A couple who recruited a friend to engage in illegal insider trading after the husband — a finance executive at a sports media firm — learned that his employer was about to be acquired is being sanctioned in a settlement with the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC).
The Capital Markets Tribunal approved a proposed settlement with Huy Le (Alvin) Huynh, who was a vice-president of finance at Score Media & Gaming Inc., and his spouse, Thi Anh Nguyet (Nancy) Pham. The pair admitted to breaching securities rules in connection with a scheme to trade on Huynh’s advance knowledge of Score’s acquisition by Penn National Gaming Inc. in 2021.
According to the settlement, after Huynh learned about the pending acquisition, he recruited his wife’s friend, Jessica Tam, to trade Score securities in order to profit from the deal.
“Huynh knew that neither he nor Pham could trade in Score securities because the acquisition had not been publicly disclosed,” the settlement noted.
Instead, he told Tam about the pending deal, gave her $10,000 to trade and directed her trading in Score call options, with the expectation that they’d share the profits — 80% for Huynh and Pham, and 20% for Tam. After successfully trading on the inside information, Tam turned over $270,000 in trading profits to the couple.
Under the settlement, Huynh must disgorge those profits, pay a penalty of $325,000 and $40,000 in costs. He is also banned for seven years. Pham — who knew about the scheme but didn’t actively participate — is banned for three years and must pay $10,000 in costs.
The settlement noted that Huynh and Pham both cooperated with the OSC’s investigation and admitted their misconduct.
“Insider trading and tipping are a scourge on capital markets,” the settlement noted. “Advantages gained from undisclosed inside information, like those gained by the respondents, are unfair to counterparties. They erode the public’s trust in the efficiency and integrity of our capital markets. All Ontarians pay the social costs of the respondents’ misconduct.”