SEC v. Charlie Jinan Chen and Shui Foon Mok (insider trading, 2020)

Judgment entered

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In February 2020 a Boston jury found restaurateur Charlie Chen liable for insider trading before five Vistaprint earnings announcements from 2013 to 2014, with profits of over $800,000. The SEC sought disgorgement and penalties of up to three times the gains.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

—

Alleged gain

$800k

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The SEC's evidence showed that Chen, a close friend of a Vistaprint insider and her husband, used confidential information to trade, once wagering much of his retirement account on options before disappointing results, and lied to the FBI about the relationship. The jury found violations of Section 10(b), Rule 10b-5 and Section 17(a). Remedies were still to be decided.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Insider trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2020-02-05 Litigation release published

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC litigation release

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.