Former Apple director of corporate law Gene Levoff has been ordered to pay the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission $1.15 million for insider trading, reports Reuters. Levoff was sentenced to four years of probation and a fine late last year.
The judge presiding over the case handed down a ruling on Tuesday. The judge said that Levoff’s violations were “especially egregious” even though he had not been “living excessively.”
Levoff served on Apple’s Disclosure Committee from September 2008 to July 2018. One of Levoff’s responsibilities involved ensuring that other Apple employees were compliant with Apple’s insider trading policies, including enforcement of “blackout periods” around the time of Apple’s earnings reports.
Unfortunately, Levoff allegedly took advantage of his position to secure profits for himself worth approximately $227,000, avoiding losses of around $377,000. Apple terminated his employment in September 2018.
One of Levoff’s underhanded deals while at Apple occurred in July 2015, when he, knowing Apple would not meet analysts’ third-quarter estimates for iPhone sales, sold $10 million in Apple stock between July 17 and July 21, which is when Apple’s earnings information went live. After the announcement, Apple stock dropped more than four percent.
Levoff pled guilty to six counts of securities fraud for insider trading in June 2022. He was fired by Apple in September 2018 after authorities informed the Cupertino firm about Levoff’s dealings. In June 2022, Levoff pleaded guilty to six counts of securities fraud for insider trading.