SEC v. Robert Hoddes Jacobs (insider trading, 2020)

Settled

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In September 2020 the SEC announced settled insider trading charges against investor relations consultant Robert Jacobs, who allegedly traded ahead of eleven earnings announcements using draft results he received from clients. He consented to a judgment with a $157,095 penalty and a five-year officer-and-director bar, subject to court approval.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$157k

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$157k

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 September 21, 2020 as litigation release 24908, filed in the Central District of California.

The complaint alleges that between February 2016 and March 2018 Jacobs traded the stock of companies he was helping with their earnings releases, gaining or avoiding losses of more than $79,000. In one example a chief financial officer emailed him draft quarterly results and he bought 23,500 shares before the release.

Without admitting or denying the allegations, Jacobs consented to an injunction, the penalty and the bar. The settlement is subject to court approval, so the status is settled rather than a final 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. 2020-09-21 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.