SEC v. Sivannarayana Barama (insider trading, 2024)

Judgment entered

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In July 2024 the Securities and Exchange Commission announced summary and final judgment against Sivannarayana Barama, a former software engineer found liable as part of an insider trading ring that traded Palo Alto Networks securities on tips about earnings from an IT administrator, Janardhan Nellore. The court enjoined him and found him liable for $6,283,079 in disgorgement and $2,179,658 in interest, payable once the related criminal appeal is finally resolved.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

—

Disgorgement

$6.3m

Prejudgment interest

$2.2m

Total relief

$8.5m

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 this judgment on July 29, 2024 as release LR-26060, in a Northern District of California case filed December 17, 2019. The court granted summary judgment and entered the final judgment on July 25, 2024.

The complaint alleged that the ring made over $7 million trading ahead of earnings announcements between 2015 and 2018; the other defendants had earlier settled. The release describes total liability of almost $8.5 million, which the court ordered paid within 30 days of the criminal appeal's disposition if the conviction stands.

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. 2024-07-29 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.