SEC v. Shaohua (Michael) Yin, et al. (insider trading, 2017)

Settled

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In February 2017 the SEC charged Hong Kong private equity partner Shaohua (Michael) Yin with insider trading in DreamWorks Animation and Lattice Semiconductor shares through five nominee accounts. On August 16, 2024 the court entered a consent final judgment imposing an injunction and a $39.5 million penalty, to be paid from the frozen accounts.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$39.5m

Disgorgement

—

Prejudgment interest

—

Total relief

$39.5m

Alleged gain

$29m

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 announced this matter on February 10, 2017 as release LR-23747 in the Southern District of New York. The release alleges Yin traded ahead of the Comcast takeover of DreamWorks and the Canyon Bridge takeover of Lattice using five accounts held by Chinese nationals, rather than his own.

Outcome. In LR-26093 (August 30, 2024) the SEC reports that on August 16, 2024 it obtained a final judgment against Yin, imposing a $39.5 million civil penalty payable from the funds frozen at the start of the case and permanently enjoining him from violating Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. The judgment document is a consent judgment, so Yin agreed to its entry and waived any appeal; the release still describes the trading as alleged. The release adds that a co-defendant, Benjamin Bin Chow, alleged to be the source of the Lattice information, was enjoined in August 2022 and barred from the securities industry in September 2022, and had been convicted in a criminal case. The release says the SEC's litigation is concluded.

What the source does not show: any criminal charge against Yin himself, or whether the five nominee account holders named as relief defendants resolved separately. The outcome recorded here covers Yin only; the record lists him alone.

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. 2017-02-10 Litigation release published
2. 2024-08-16 Consent final judgment against Yin: $39.5 million penalty and injunction

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
• SEC litigation release on the final judgment
• Consent and final judgment as to Yin (court filing)

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.

Same matter

The library links these 2 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 10, 2026. submit a correction.