SEC v. Harold L. Altvater (insider trading, 2018)

Settled

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The SEC sued Harold Altvater over insider trading in Ariad Pharmaceuticals stock based on information from his wife. On 23 July 2020 the District of Massachusetts entered a consent judgment with an injunction and $112,569 in disgorgement, offset by his criminal forfeiture; he had been convicted at trial and sentenced to 18 months.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$113k

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$113k

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 October 11, 2018 as release LR-24315. The respondents named are Harold L. Altvater (1 individual, 0 entities).

This library tags the matter as insider trading, based on the conduct the regulator describes. Each tag links to a page explaining how that technique works, what statute it engages, and what penalties comparable actions have attracted. The tagging is ours, not the regulator's: agencies charge statutory provisions, not technique names.

The release references a parallel criminal proceeding. Where a criminal case exists, the civil and criminal outcomes are recorded separately, because they resolve on different standards of proof.

A later SEC litigation release shows the civil case ended in a consent judgment on 23 July 2020. The judgment permanently enjoins Altvater from antifraud violations and orders disgorgement of $112,569, to be offset by the forfeiture order in his criminal case. In that case a jury convicted him in October 2018 on three counts of securities fraud, and in January 2019 he was sentenced to 18 months in prison with one year of supervised release and $115,657 in forfeiture. The release states no civil penalty or prejudgment interest. The civil complaint was filed in 2017, earlier than the 2018 date this record carries.

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. 2018-10-11 Litigation release published
2. 2020-07-23 Final consent judgment entered: injunction and $112,569 disgorgement, offset by criminal forfeiture

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-24855 (final consent 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 4 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.