SEC v. Eric McPhail, et al. (insider trading, 2018)

Judgment entered

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In February 2018 the SEC announced final judgments against Eric McPhail and Jamie Meadows, the last defendants in a case over American Superconductor trading on tips from a country club friend. Meadows was ordered to pay $191,521 disgorgement, $41,841 interest and a $191,521 penalty. McPhail was convicted and sentenced to 18 months.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$192k

Disgorgement

$192k

Prejudgment interest

$41.8k

Total relief

$425k

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 2014 complaint alleged that McPhail passed an executive's confidential information to six friends, including Meadows, who together made over $554,000 between 2009 and 2011. Five other defendants had already settled. McPhail consented to an injunction; he was convicted at trial in June 2015 and sentenced to 18 months. Meadows consented to an injunction, disgorgement and interest, and the court set his penalty after a hearing.

The stored money is Meadows's judgment.

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. 2018-02-20 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.

Same matter

The library links these 3 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.