Home > Dedman School of Law > Law Journals > SMU Law Review > Vol. 71 (2018) > Texas Gulf Sulphur 50th Anniversary Symposium Issue
SMU Law Review
Abstract
The Texas Gulf Sulphur decision was the seminal moment in the creation of the modern federal insider trading prohibition. In the half century since it was decided, however, courts and commentators have overlooked the glaring flaw in the court’s analysis.
In the key part of the opinion, in which the court laid out the equal access standard, the court grossly misrepresented the precedents on which it relied. The court cited two state law opinions that were wholly irrelevant to the problem at hand. It cited two law review articles, but those articles sim- ply do not say what the court claimed they said. Finally, the court made a bald, unsupported statement of Congressional intent that is demonstrably false.
The insider trading prohibition thus rests on a foundation of sand.
Recommended Citation
Stephen M Bainbridge,
Equal Access to Information: The Fraud at the Heart of Texas Gulf Sulphur,
71
SMU L. Rev.
643
(2018)
