SEC v. Fei Yan, et al. (insider trading, 2018)

Judgment entered

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In August 2018 the SEC announced a final judgment against research scientist Fei Yan, who traded ahead of two acquisitions on information from his wife, a law firm associate, using his mother's account. Disgorgement of $119,429 was deemed satisfied by criminal forfeiture; he is serving a 15-month sentence.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$119k

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$119k

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 alleged that Yan bought stocks and options before two announced takeovers on confidential information his wife obtained at her firm, placed the trades in his mother's account, and searched the internet for ways to avoid SEC detection. He consented to an injunction under Sections 10(b) and 14(e) and to disgorgement of $119,429, satisfied by forfeiture in the criminal case, where he pleaded guilty.

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. 2018-08-03 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.