W&L Law’s Karen Woody Quoted in Wall Street Journal on Insider Trading A biotech executive made $120,000 when he bought stock options on a drug company that he did not work for.

By Law Communications
February 21, 2024

Washington and Lee Law Professor Karen Woody was quoted in a Wall Street Journal article on a novel insider trading case.

The article, “An Executive Bought a Rival’s Stock. The SEC Says That’s Insider Trading,” examines the case of Biotech executive Matthew Panuwat, who made $120,000 when he bought stock options on a drug company that he did not work for. He was charged by the SEC with insider trading.

The case is being called a new test of insider trading law, which is poorly defined by Congress. According to Woody, no court has explored the idea that executives may overreach when they use their specialized expertise to trade in the shares of rivals.

“I do think this is a push of the law and they are seeing if they can get a court to bless what is a bit of a stretch of the existing parameters,” Woody said of the SEC’s case in the article.

Professor Woody’s scholarship focuses on securities law, financial regulation, and white-collar crime. She is very active in advisory roles within the financial industry. Last year, she was named a fellow with the International Academy of Financial Crime Litigators, a collaboration between public- and private-sector litigation professionals and the Basel Institute on Governance to promote worldwide access to solutions in cases of economic crime. In addition, she was appointed to a four-year term on the National Adjudicatory Council (NAC) of the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA).

Professor Woody has published her work in a number of journals including the American University Law Review, Arizona State Law Journal, Maryland Law Review, Stanford Law Review Online, Cardozo Law Review, Fordham Law Review, and the Journal of Corporation Law, among others.