The SEC has brought some novel cases lately and won so I am much less sure of myself than I would have been 5 or 10 years ago, but this certainly doesn’t look like classical American insider trading to me.

The analyst in this case has no fiduciary duty to the harmed parties so they wouldn’t be insiders.

I’d talk to a lawyer but it’s for sure not “totally illegal”. It’s in the grey area.

> The analyst in this case has no fiduciary duty to the harmed parties so they wouldn’t be insiders.

The current doctrine - as Matt Levine puts in in his recurring motif "Everything is a Securities Fraud" - is not about fiduciary duty, but about an unfair information edge and basically "cheating" other people trading without insider information.

You don't have to be an insider to be guilty of insider trading - it is sufficient to trade on insider information.

I can't recall any recent case where an outsider eon against the SEC by arguing they don't have a contractual duty to shareholders, because the alleged harm is broader than that

The issue isn’t so much being an insider, it’s did you get access to the data through nefarious purposes or did you have an obligation to protect that data.

If I’m an analyst and I cold call someone with a duty to protect the data, it’s not at all clear how I’ve stolen from the shareholders. Which is the basis of US insider trading. Theft, not information asymmetry.

Compare that to if I steal a binder from my sleeping girlfriend (a recent case). She has a duty, but I’ve stolen from the shareholders in that case.

That said, the SEC has certainly expanded the definition of insider trading recently with their court hypothesis’