A landmark case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) against Bryan Cohen and George Nikas is about to come to a conclusion, as indicated by the most recent court filings.

Today, the SEC submitted a Letter at the New York Southern District Court stating that the regulator and George Nikas, a securities trader involved in an insider trading scheme, have reached a proposed settlement.

Among other things, the proposed consent judgment:

1. permanently enjoins Nikas from committing additional violations of the federal securities laws the Commission charged him with violating, including an injunction against engaging in fraud in connection with the purchase or sale of any security; and

2. imposes a civil penalty of $5.3 million, pursuant to 15 U.S.C. § 78u-1, on Nikas.

In addition, upon the entry of the Judgment, and with Nikas’s agreement, assets presently frozen by the Court’s order in this case will be transferred to the SEC in satisfaction of the $5.3 million penalty to be imposed upon entry of the final Judgment.

The SEC has also filed a second civil action against Nikas alleging violations of the securities laws in connection with another insider trading scheme. The parties have reached a proposed settlement in that civil action (docketed as SEC v. Taylor, Windsor, et al., 19 Civ. 7944 (LAP)) and are simultaneously submitting a proposed Final Judgment. That settlement would impose similar injunctive relief as in the instant case, along with a $1.5 million civil penalty, to be satisfied from assets frozen by the Court in this civil action (specifically, proceeds from the sale of Nikas’s Manhattan apartment).

On October 18, 2019, the Securities and Exchange Commission filed an emergency action charging Cohen – an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, and Nikas, in connection with an international insider trading scheme relating to trading in the stock of at least two public companies in advance of news that these companies were acquisition targets.

According to the SEC’s complaint, Bryan Cohen learned nonpublic information about the potential acquisitions through his role as an investment banker based in London and New York. Cohen allegedly shared this information with at least one foreign individual who traded on the information and further tipped it to George Nikas. According to the SEC’s complaint, Nikas used the information to net over $2.6 million in illicit profits resulting from trades in stock, American Depositary Shares, and Contracts for Difference, which were traded or hedged on U.S. Exchanges.