Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren has asked the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate possible insider trading relating to large volume of purchases of Kodak stock made by the company’s CEO and board members in the month before a surprise announcement that the company will get a $765 million government loan to manufacture pharmaceutical ingredients, Roll Call reports.
On July 27th, Kodak saw an unusually high volume of stock activity, particularly among company insiders. The following day, President Trump announced the federal loan that would finance Kodak’s venture into pharma manufacturing, an industry the company had no significant experience in.
Warren cited trades may have attributed to stories that appeared in local media in upstate New York prior to Trump’s announcement, but an investigation was warranted due to the volume and people involved in the trades.
“While the report may resolve questions about the individuals who purchased the stock after seeing those public disclosures, it also opens up new questions about how Kodak handled
what appears to be ‘non-intentional disclosure of material nonpublic information,’” Warren wrote to the SEC.
Trump invoked the Defense Production Act to justify the loan to Kodak, which historically is known for its photography products, an industry devastated by the switch to digital photography.