SEC v. Gene Shen (insider trading, 2018)

Settled

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In July 2018 the SEC charged Gene Shen, a Pacific Biosciences scientist, with buying shares before three milestone announcements and tipping a relative, and settled the charges. He agreed to pay $40,622 disgorgement, $4,228 interest and a $43,342 penalty, subject to court approval.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$43.3k

Disgorgement

$40.6k

Prejudgment interest

$4.2k

Total relief

$88.2k

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 Shen used non-public information about the company's progress on a sequencing platform to buy shares in blackout periods through accounts outside the company's designated broker, and shared information with a relative who bought a day before the third announcement. Without admitting or denying the allegations, he agreed to an injunction and payments totalling $88,192.

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. 2018-07-10 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.