SEC v. Gary S. Williky (insider trading, 2015)

Judgment entered

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In March 2015 the SEC filed a civil action in the Southern District of Indiana against Gary S. Williky, a Texas investor relations consultant to Imperial Petroleum, alleging match and wash trades to inflate volume, scalping, undisclosed ownership above 5 percent, and trading on non-public information. A final judgment entered on August 3, 2018 imposed an officer-and-director bar, injunctions, a $1,746,434 penalty and disgorgement with interest of $1,037,811.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$1.7m

Disgorgement

$1m

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$2.8m

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 Securities and Exchange Commission announced this matter on March 2, 2015 as litigation release 23211. The defendant named is Gary S. Williky, who the complaint says between 2010 and early 2012 pumped Imperial Petroleum stock through match and wash trades, touted it by email without disclosing his own sales, did not disclose his stake of more than 5 percent, and sold hundreds of thousands of shares on non-public information about fraud at the company. The SEC sought an injunction, disgorgement, a penalty and an officer-and-director bar; Mr Williky had been barred from the industry in 1996.

This library tags the matter as insider trading, newsletter scalping, pump and dump, wash trading, based on the conduct the document describes. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above. This page deliberately summarises the structured record rather than reproducing the release.

Outcome. SEC litigation release 24244 (August 23, 2018) says a federal court in Indianapolis entered final judgment on August 3, 2018. The judgment permanently enjoins Williky from violating the antifraud, anti-manipulation (Exchange Act 9(a)(1)) and beneficial-ownership provisions, bars him from serving as an officer or director of public companies, and orders civil penalties of $1,746,434 and disgorgement plus interest of $1,037,811, $2,784,245 in total. The release combines disgorgement and interest in one figure, so the structured disgorgement field holds that combined amount. It says the judgment ends the SEC's litigation entirely and links the court's opinion granting the SEC's remedies motion; it does not say whether the liability findings came by settlement, so we do not describe how the case was decided beyond a court judgment.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with 4 techniques 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.
• Newsletter scalping — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
• Pump and dump — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.
• Wash trading — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2015-03-02 Litigation release published
2. 2018-08-03 Final judgment entered (S.D. Ind.): officer-director bar, penalty, disgorgement

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 24244 (final judgment)

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.