SEC v. Dennis Wayne Hamilton (insider trading, 2018)

Judgment entered

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In October 2018 the SEC announced a final judgment against former Harman executive Dennis Hamilton, who traded Harman stock on non-public information five times. He must disgorge $730,279, pay $102,145 interest and a $584,047 penalty, offset by $131,958 paid in the criminal case, and accepted an officer-and-director bar. He was sentenced to eight months.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$584k

Disgorgement

$730k

Prejudgment interest

$102k

Total relief

$1.4m

Alleged gain

—

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 charged one instance of insider trading in February 2016 and added four more in an August 2016 amended complaint, involving trades ahead of earnings releases and other disclosures. Hamilton consented to the judgment, which enjoins him under Section 10(b) and Section 17(a), and the Commission suspended him from practising as an accountant. He pleaded guilty to securities fraud and was sentenced to eight months.

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. 2018-10-10 Litigation release published

Primary documents

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• 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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

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

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.