Game of Courts: How the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Shops for Friendly Judges in the Fifth Circuit
Watchdog: Trump-Advising Texas Tax Firm Suing FTC Over Non-Compete Rule Has Ties to 5th Circuit & U.S. Chamber
Conservatives Take Notes from Foreign Authoritarian Leaders at CPAC Hungary
Pharma Giants Opposed to Cost-Lowering Biden Initiative Brag of Billions in Revenue
U.S. Chamber of Commerce Taking “Judge Shopping” To New Extremes
Site Menu

FLASHBACK – June 3: “Watchdog urges SEC to investigate vaccine maker Moderna”

Washington, DC – Today, Accountable.US released the following statement in advance of a House Financial Services Committee Subcommittee on Investor Protection, Entrepreneurship and Capital Markets hearing on “Insider Trading and Stock Option Grants: An Examination of Corporate Integrity in the Covid-19 Pandemic.”

“Watching drug company executives shamelessly dumping their stock options and pocketing fortunes for themselves after they pumped up their stock prices with billions of taxpayer dollars certainly doesn’t inspire confidence and should absolutely be investigated,” said Eli Zupnick, spokesman for Accountable Pharma. 

“While taxpayers are putting more and more skin in the game through Operation Warp Speed, drug company executives are feverishly pulling theirs out and making sure that they come out of this big winners whether or not they actually deliver a safe and effective vaccine. This hearing is an important step in continuing to shine a spotlight on this egregious, and potentially criminal, activity.”

On June 1st, Accountable.US president Kyle Herrig wrote to the Securities and Exchange Commission Market Abuse Unit to alert them about the potential insider trading, saying “this misconduct was particularly egregious because it involved not only financial fraud and manipulation of the financial markets, but also because it exploited widespread fears surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.”

CBS: Watchdog urges SEC to investigate vaccine maker Moderna: An anti-corruption watchdog group is urging the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate top executives at Moderna, the biotech firm developing a promising coronavirus vaccine, for allegedly manipulating the stock market. “This misconduct was particularly egregious because it involved not only financial fraud and manipulation of the financial markets, but also because it exploited widespread fears surrounding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic,” wrote Kyle Herrig, who heads Accountable.US, in a letter to the SEC. “I strongly urge the SEC to investigate these matters.”  [CBS, 6/3/20]

Reuters: Exclusive: Novavax executives could get big payday even if vaccine fails: One of the leading U.S. firms developing a coronavirus vaccine, Novavax Inc NVAX.O, has awarded executives stock options that could pay out tens of millions of dollars even if its efforts fail…“Drug companies like Novavax are getting billions of dollars from taxpayers to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, so it’s certainly concerning to see their executives get massive payouts before we know if the vaccine actually works,” said Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for consumer watchdog Patients Over Pharma. [Reuters, 7/22/20]

CBS: Moderna executives hiked their stock sales after announcing positive vaccine trial: Moderna CEO Stéphane Bancel more than tripled the number of his company shares to be sold through an executive stock plan that was changed just days after the biotech in May announced positive early results for its coronavirus vaccine. …the fact that the plans were changed during the pandemic as news was emerging about the company’s closely watched coronavirus vaccine raises new questions about how Moderna executives have pocketed millions of dollars in recent months. “Once again, drug company executives have been caught playing games with their stock options,” Kyle Herrig, who heads the government watchdog group Accountable.US, said in an email to CBS MoneyWatch.The group last month urged the SEC to investigate top executives at Moderna for allegedly manipulating the stock market. “The SEC needs to investigate these stock-plan changes,” Herrig said. [CBS, 7/21/20]

Salon: Pharma execs dumped millions in stock for huge profits after getting pandemic contracts: Pharmaceutical executives continued to dump millions of dollars in stock in August despite criticism that they were profiting from big taxpayer-funded contracts awarded amid the coronavirus pandemic. Stock prices have soared for pharmaceutical companies like Moderna, which is developing a leading vaccine candidate, in no small part thanks to contracts awarded by the Trump administration. The top five executives at Moderna sold more than $89 million in stock in the first five months of the year, with about three times as many stock transactions as in all of 2019, according to Stat News….”It certainly doesn’t inspire much confidence to see drug company executives feverishly dumping their stock options and cashing out fortunes for themselves after stock prices were inflated by the billions of dollars the Trump administration shoveled into drug company coffers,” Eli Zupnick, a spokesman for the progressive watchdog group Accountable Pharma, told Salon. [Salon, 8/27/20]

###
back to top