SEC v. Mahmoud Ali Abdelkader (insider trading, 2023)

Settled

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In March 2023 the SEC announced a settlement with Mahmoud Abdelkader, who bought Audentes call options in October 2019 after inferring from his wife's work that an acquisition was likely. He agreed to pay a $81,580 penalty and $90,570 in disgorgement and interest, subject to court approval.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$81.6k

Disgorgement

$90.6k

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$172k

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 the settled complaint on March 9, 2023 as litigation release 25660, filed in the Northern District of California.

The complaint alleges Abdelkader misappropriated information from his wife, an Audentes employee, and bought short-dated out-of-the-money calls before the December 2, 2019 announcement of Astellas's roughly $3 billion purchase; the stock rose about 106%.

The figure of $90,570 combines disgorgement and prejudgment interest as the release states them, and court approval was pending, so the status is settled rather than judgment.

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.

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. 2023-03-09 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.