SEC v. Jason Napodano, Bilal Basrai and Bryce Stirton (insider trading, 2017)

Settled

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In September 2017 the SEC charged analyst Jason Napodano and brokers Bilal Basrai and Bryce Stirton with trading on advance knowledge of research publication dates and client information. All three settled, subject to court approval, for a combined $185,753 disgorgement and an equal penalty; Napodano accepted a penny stock bar. A separate $240,000 penalty against LBMZ Securities was for a compliance failure.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$186k

Disgorgement

$186k

Prejudgment interest

$22.5k

Total relief

$394k

Alleged gain

$186k

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 Napodano, who ran Zacks Small Cap Research, traded in stocks he covered before his reports appeared while telling readers he held no positions, and that Basrai and Stirton traded on confidential information from microcap issuers that used LBMZ or Zacks.

Napodano agreed to disgorgement of $143,865.48, interest of $17,620.87 and an equal penalty; Basrai to $39,668.37, $4,617.89 and an equal penalty; Stirton to $2,218.87, $257.43 and an equal penalty. The stored figures are the sums. A parallel criminal case was announced against Napodano and Basrai. The earlier record showed LBMZ's $240,000 penalty, which was imposed on the firm in a separate order for failing to enforce procedures, and it has been removed.

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. 2017-09-26 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.