Ex-BP employee accused of insider trading sold $1 million in stock after Gulf oil spill: SEC

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/04/17/ex-bp-employee-accused-of-insider-trading-sold-1-million-in-stock-after-gulf-oil-spill-sec/



Ex-BP employee accused of insider trading sold $1 million in stock after Gulf oil spill: SEC
By Agence France-Presse
Thursday, April 17, 2014 14:39 EDT

Regulators Thursday charged a former BP employee who worked on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill with insider trading after he sold $1 million worth of BP stock days after the disaster.

Keith Seilhan, who coordinated BP’s cleanup of the giant oil spill, sold his family’s entire portfolio of BP stock over two days in late April 2010 after he learned the spill was far bigger than BP was saying publicly, according to the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

Seilhan learned oil was spilling out between 52,700-62,2000 barrels per day. BP at the time estimated the flow rate to be just 5,000 barrels a day, the SEC said.

“Seilhan sold his family’s BP securities after he received confidential information about the severity of the spill that the public didn’t know,” said Daniel Hawke, head of the SEC enforcement division’s market abuse unit.