Former Abaxis Employee Settles Insider Trading Charges With SEC

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has settled charges with a former employer of Abaxis Inc., a Union City, Calif.-based medical device company for both human and animal care, who was found guilty of insider trading by the commission. ThanhHa Bao leaked illegal tips to her younger brother Tai Nguyen, who in turn sold the information to Noah Freeman and Samar Barai. Freeman worked at Sonar Capital Management LLC and later at the hedge fund SAC Capital Advisers; Barai is the founder of Barai Capiral Management LP.

The SEC charged Bao with regularly passing over information about Axis to Nguyen between 2006 and 2009. She worked in the finance department.

On March 14, Nguyen was sentenced to a year and a day in prison. In June last year, he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit securities and wire fraud. He also agreed to a $400,000 criminal forfeiture.

Bao was not criminally charged, but she agreed in the SEC accord to a five-year ban from serving as an officer or director of a public company. Abaxis, as a company, has not been accused of any wrongdoing.

Freeman and Barai have pleaded guilty and are cooperating with prosecutors in a wide-ranging hedge fund insider-trading probe that began in 2009. More than 70 people have been convicted or pleaded guilty.