SEC v. Robert C. Dobkin, Cynthia Braun, Michael Fiorillo and Jeffrey S. Gregersen (insider trading, 2021)

Settled

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In December 2021 the SEC charged Linear Technology founder Robert Dobkin and three others with trading ahead of the Analog Devices merger announcement. Each defendant consented to a final judgment, the last dated April 6, 2023, with civil penalties totalling $935,930.90 and an officer-and-director bar for Dobkin.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$936k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$936k

Alleged gain

$325k

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 complaint on December 1, 2021 as litigation release 25275, filed in the Northern District of California.

The complaint alleged Dobkin tipped his friends Cynthia Braun and Michael Fiorillo, who bought Linear securities including out-of-the-money calls, and that Fiorillo tipped Jeffrey Gregersen.

Outcome. The SEC posted final judgments for all four defendants in the Northern District of California case, each recording that the defendant consented to entry without admitting or denying the allegations. The documents impose civil penalties of $252,092.16 on Dobkin, $83,672.26 on Braun, $460,000 on Fiorillo (payable in twelve installments) and $140,166.48 on Gregersen, $935,930.90 in all, and permanent injunctions against the Exchange Act antifraud provisions. Dobkin's judgment also bars him from serving as an officer or director of a public company. The Gregersen document is dated August 11, 2022, the Dobkin and Braun documents January 4, 2023 and the Fiorillo document April 6, 2023, the date recorded; the SEC's copies carry a proposed-order heading, so the dates are those on the documents rather than a docket entry we saw. No disgorgement appears in the judgments we read.

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. 2021-12-01 Litigation release published
2. 2022-08-11 Final judgment as to Gregersen
3. 2023-01-04 Final judgments as to Dobkin and Braun
4. 2023-04-06 Final judgment as to Fiorillo

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
• Final judgment as to Dobkin
• Final judgment as to Braun
• Final judgment as to Fiorillo
• Final judgment as to Gregersen

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.