United States v. O'Hagan, 521 U.S. 642, 44 (1997)

Page:   Index   Previous  37  38  39  40  41  42  43  44  45  46  47  48  49  50  51  Next

Cite as: 521 U. S. 642 (1997)

Opinion of Thomas, J.

the majority's described distinction of financial embezzlement is incomplete. Although the majority claims that the fraud in a financial embezzlement case is complete as soon as the money is obtained, and before the securities transaction is consummated, that is not uniformly true, and thus cannot be the Government's basis for claiming that such embezzlement does not violate the securities laws. It is not difficult to imagine an embezzlement of money that takes place via the mechanism of a securities transaction—for example where a broker is directed to purchase stock for a client and instead purchases such stock—using client funds—for his own account. The unauthorized (and presumably undis-closed) transaction is the very act that constitutes the embezzlement and the "securities transaction and the breach of duty thus coincide." What presumably distinguishes monetary embezzlement for the Government is thus that it is not necessarily coincident with a securities transaction, not that it never lacks such a "connection."

Once the Government's construction of the misappropriation theory is accurately described and accepted—along with its implied construction of § 10(b)'s "in connection with" language—that theory should no longer cover cases, such as this one, involving fraud on the source of information where the source has no connection with the other participant in a securities transaction. It seems obvious that the undisclosed misappropriation of confidential information is not necessarily consummated by a securities transaction. In this case, for example, upon learning of Grand Met's confidential take-over plans, O'Hagan could have done any number of things with the information: He could have sold it to a newspaper for publication, see id., at 36; he could have given or sold the information to Pillsbury itself, see id., at 37; or he could even have kept the information and used it solely for his personal amusement, perhaps in a fantasy stock trading game.

Any of these activities would have deprived Grand Met of its right to "exclusive use," ante, at 654, of the information

685

Page:   Index   Previous  37  38  39  40  41  42  43  44  45  46  47  48  49  50  51  Next

Last modified: October 4, 2007