"My boss was an asshole today." Fine.
"We're about to get bought out for $x million." Very much not fine.
Well if your boss was an asshole today, because you can't make any sales that's something you can say as a realtor in a private company, but can't say as the guy trying to close XXX,000 sized seat contracts at a public company because your inability to perform is going to be reflected in the quarterly reports.
> "We're about to get bought out for $x million." Very much not fine.
Here's another example. If your company is in the process of a public merger, and you're publicly involved in the M&A process you can't throw a wild party the day before the public announcement of its success, because someone will inevitably ask "why are you guys celebrating?"
Of course, insider trading laws are broken on a minute-to-minute basis by hundreds of corporate executives and others. If you want to nail someone for insider trading, and they have a management position at a company, you could do it fairly easily. White collar crime is very rarely even investigated, let alone prosecuted or punished, though.