ATI Insider Trading?

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Starting on Feb. 19 the OSC will begin an insider-trading hearing involving six ATI insiders, including Chang, Stone and company founder and chief executive K.Y. Ho.

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From an article on Reuters

Ex-ATI exec's frozen account seen holding C$1 mln
Tue December 23, 2003 04:18 PM ET

TORONTO, Dec 23 (Reuters) - A frozen offshore account held by former ATI Technologies Inc. (ATY.TO: Quote, Profile, Research) (ATYT.O: Quote, Profile, Research) director of investor relations Jo-Anne Chang contains more than C$1 million, regulators said on Tuesday.
Canada's leading securities regulator, the Ontario Securities Commission, froze the account on Monday, alleging that the money was made through insider trading.

"We believe that the proceeds of the transactions would have been a gross profit of C$1.26 million ($955,000) ...so we believe that is the amount that would be there," said OSC spokesman Eric Pelletier.

"But of course the money has been in the account since May 2000, so there may be also some interest that accumulated," he added.

The OSC said on Monday that it had directed two financial institutions to freeze the account, which is held in the name of Sovereign Ltd. The OSC alleges that Chang and her husband, David Stone, transferred "illegally obtained funds" to the Sovereign account.

The account is frozen until a hearing scheduled for Feb. 10.

The account freeze is part of a year-long investigation into allegations of insider trading at ATI, which makes graphics chips for computers, mobile phones and computer games.

Starting on Feb. 19 the OSC will begin an insider-trading hearing involving six ATI insiders, including Chang, Stone and company founder and chief executive K.Y. Ho.

The OSC says the group reaped more than C$7.9 million of profits, or avoided losses, by selling ATI stock ahead of a May 24, 2000, profit warning that knocked 53 percent off the share price over two days.

Ho and his wife Betty are accused of avoiding a total loss of C$6.9 million by selling shares before the lower outlook was released, and by donating shares to a charity before the news, thereby maximizing a tax benefit.