- A Houston man plead guilty to insider trading after making $1.76 million.
- While working remotely, he listened to his wife's phone call about BP's planned acquisition of Travel Centers of America.
- Tyler Loudon's wife moved out of their joint and began divorce proceedings.
A Houston man has pleaded guilty to insider trading for making $1.76 million in illegal profits after tapping his wife's work phone calls while she was working from home.
U.S. Attorney Alamdar S. Hamdani said Tyler Loudon, 42, was arrested in February 2023 prior to British oil and gas company BP's $1.3 billion acquisition of Travel Centers of America. He admitted to purchasing thousands of shares of Travel Centers of America.
The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleged in a separate civil complaint that Loudon, who was married to a BP executive, overheard conversations about the acquisition plan.
The SEC said the couple typically worked six feet apart from each other at home and were often overheard in each other's work-related conversations.
Regulators said Loudon bought 46,450 shares of Travel Centers stock without his wife's knowledge before the deal was announced.
After the announcement, the stock price rose nearly 71%, and Mr. Loudon sold all his purchases at a profit, according to the SEC.
The SEC charged Tyler Loudon with insider trading. The suspect “exploited the conditions of remote work and his wife's trust to profit from information he knew to be confidential,” the lawsuit alleges.
When Loudon learned that BP was investigating who had prior knowledge of the transaction, he confessed to his wife what he had done. She said he told her he did it because he didn't want her to work longer hours, according to the SEC's complaint.
His wife, a mergers and acquisitions manager at BP, told her bosses about Loudon's revelations and was subsequently fired, even though there was no evidence of wrongdoing on her part.
She then moved out of their shared home and began divorce proceedings several months later, ignoring a handwritten note from Loudon apologizing for betraying his trust, according to the complaint.
The SEC noted that Mr. Loudon does not deny the charges and agreed to a partial sentence subject to court approval.
The move would prohibit him from holding certain senior positions at the company and require him to pay a fine.
