SEC v. Pawan Kumar Passi (insider trading, 2024)

Settled

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In January 2024 the Securities and Exchange Commission settled with Pawan Passi, the former head of Morgan Stanley's Equity Syndicate Desk, finding that between June 2018 and August 2021 he disclosed confidential details of upcoming block trades to buy-side investors who used them to take short positions first. Passi agreed to a cease-and-desist order, an industry bar with a right to reapply after one year, and a $250,000 civil penalty; he has a deferred-prosecution agreement with federal prosecutors.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$250k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$250k

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 issued this settled order on January 12, 2024 (Release No. 34-99337, File No. 3-21826).

The order finds that Passi, as head of the desk, agreed with sellers of large share blocks that Morgan Stanley would keep their sale plans confidential while knowing he would pass some of the information to prospective buyers, who pre-positioned in the stock. A parallel order addresses Morgan Stanley itself.

Passi consented to the order and admitted its findings only for the purpose of bankruptcy-discharge exceptions. He is barred from associating with brokers, dealers and advisers and from penny-stock offerings, with a right to reapply after one year, and faces a two-year limit on supervisory roles.

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. 2024-01-12 Administrative proceeding instituted (cease-and-desist)

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 order

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.