SEC v. Evan R. Kita, et al. (insider trading, 2017)

Judgment entered

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In August 2017 the SEC charged a former Celator Pharmaceuticals accountant and three others with trading on his tips about clinical trial results and a takeover by Jazz Pharmaceuticals. In March 2019 the court entered final judgments against all four, with $442,006 in disgorgement and interest deemed satisfied by criminal forfeiture.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

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Disgorgement

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Prejudgment interest

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Total relief

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Alleged gain

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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 complaint alleged that Evan Kita, a CPA at Celator, tipped friends Daniel Perez and Richard Yu about trial results ahead of a March 2016 announcement and about the Jazz acquisition in May 2016, in return for a share of profits, and that Yu passed the tips to his father Chiang Yu. Kita allegedly used an encrypted phone application to avoid detection.

Outcome: an SEC litigation release of April 4, 2019 says the SEC obtained final judgments on March 19, 2019 permanently enjoining all four from violating Sections 10(b) and 14(e) and ordering a combined $442,006 in disgorgement and prejudgment interest, deemed satisfied by forfeiture in the parallel criminal cases. The release says all four pleaded guilty, that Kita was sentenced to six months of incarceration and the other three to probation, and that Kita was separately suspended from practising before the SEC as an accountant. The split of the $442,006 between disgorgement and interest is not given, so neither is stored.

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. 2017-08-31 Litigation release published
2. 2019-03-19 Final judgments entered against Kita, Perez, Richard Yu and Chiang Yu

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
• SEC litigation release LR-24441 (final judgments)

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.