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.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)