This paper examines the Supreme Court's decision in SEC v. Capital Gains Research Bureau and its effect on the development of the law of insider trading. Capital Gains broke ground both in its approach to interpreting the federal securities laws, as well as its willingness to incorporate fiduciary principles into the law of insider trading. The opinion's influence was short-lived, however, as the Supreme Court reverted to a more textualist approach in securities cases only a decade after Capital Gains was decided.
SEC's allegations that the defendants operated a "massive Ponzi scheme", misappropriated billions of dollars in investors' money, and falsified the Stanford International Bank's records to hide their fraud.