SEC v. James Alex Irvin (insider trading, 2019)

Settled

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In September 2019 the SEC charged PetMed Express marketing director James Irvin with trading before six earnings announcements and tipping a friend, and settled. He agreed to $227,795 disgorgement, $34,494 interest, a $252,270 penalty and a five-year officer-and-director bar, subject to court approval.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$252k

Disgorgement

$228k

Prejudgment interest

$34.5k

Total relief

$515k

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 Irvin bought shares and options during blackout periods, in breach of the company's policy, realising profits and avoiding losses of $227,795, and that he tipped a close friend about fiscal 2017 results. Without admitting or denying the allegations he agreed to an injunction under Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5 and the payments and bar above.

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. 2019-09-25 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.