A California woman has been arrested on charges of leaking secrets about technology companies to hedge funds, as federal prosecutors expand their probe into insider trading.
Winifred Jiau (焦婉盈), 43, was charged with one count of securities fraud and one count of conspiracy, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Preet Bharara said.
Jiau faces up to 20 years in prison on the securities fraud charge. Her lawyer was not immediately available to comment.
Prosecutors said that from 2006 to 2008, Jiau leaked inside information, including earnings, about multiple publicly-traded companies, including Marvell Technology Group Ltd and Nvidia Corp to hedge funds, in exchange for more than US$200,000.
They said the payments were made through a Mountain View, California-based “expert network” firm that purported to offer “institutional money managers and analysts with market intelligence” services through a “global advisory team of experts.”
Prosecutors did not identify the firm, but that language is used in marketing materials for Primary Global Research, a Mountain View-based expert network firm.
On Dec. 16, prosecutors disclosed four other insider trading arrests, in an announcement focused on people hired as consultants to hedge funds by Primary Global.
Primary Global, Marvell and Nvidia did not immediately return requests for comment.
In the case of Marvell, prosecutors said Jiau provided two portfolio managers of separate hedge funds with accurate information about the company’s results for the quarter ended May 3, 2008, leading to more than US$820,000 of trading profits for one of the funds.
Prosecutors also said Jiau on Aug. 8, 2008, told the portfolio managers that Nvidia would post revenue of “892” for last year’s fiscal second quarter and announce a stock buyback. A few days later, Nvidia posted revenue of US$892.7 million and added US$1 billion to the buyback program, prosecutors said.
Jiau was arrested at her Fremont, California, home on Tuesday and was scheduled to be presented before a federal magistrate judge in that state on Wednesday, prosecutors said.
WASHINGTON’S INCENTIVES: The CHIPS Act set aside US$39 billion in direct grants to persuade the world’s top semiconductor companies to make chips on US soil The US plans to award more than US$6 billion to Samsung Electronics Co, helping the chipmaker expand beyond a project in Texas it has already announced, people familiar with the matter said. The money from the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act would be one of several major awards that the US Department of Commerce is expected to announce in the coming weeks, including a grant of more than US$5 billion to Samsung’s rival, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), people familiar with the plans said. The people spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the official announcements. The federal funding for
HIGH DEMAND: The firm has strong capabilities of providing key components including liquid cooling technology needed for AI servers, chairman Young Liu said Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) yesterday revised its revenue outlook for this year to “significant” growth from a “neutral” view forecast five months ago, due to strong demand for artificial intelligence (AI) servers from cloud service providers. Hon Hai, a major assembler of iPhones that is also known as Foxconn, expects AI server revenues to soar more than 40 percent annually this year, chairman Young Liu (劉揚偉) told investors. The robust growth would uplift revenue contribution from AI servers to 40 percent of the company’s overall server revenue this year, from 30 percent last year, Liu said. In the three-year period
LONG HAUL: Largan Energy Materials’ TNO-based lithium-ion batteries are expected to charge in five minutes and last about 20 years, far surpassing conventional technology Largan Precision Co (大立光) has formed a joint venture with the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI, 工研院) to produce fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles, mobile electronics and electric storage units, the camera lens supplier for Apple Inc’s iPhones said yesterday. Largan Energy Materials Co (萬溢能源材料), established in January, is developing high-energy, fast-charging, long-life lithium-ion batteries using titanium niobium oxide (TNO) anodes, it said. TNO-based batteries can be fully charged in five minutes and have a lifespan of 20 years, a major advantage over the two to four hours of charging time needed for conventional graphite-anode-based batteries, Largan said in a
Taiwan is one of the first countries to benefit from the artificial intelligence (AI) boom, but because that is largely down to a single company it also represents a risk, former Google Taiwan managing director Chien Lee-feng (簡立峰) said at an AI forum in Taipei yesterday. Speaking at the forum on how generative AI can generate possibilities for all walks of life, Chien said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) — currently among the world’s 10 most-valuable companies due to continued optimism about AI — ensures Taiwan is one of the economies to benefit most from AI. “This is because AI is