The Securities and Exchange Commission is warning Corporate America that anyone who thinks so-called “big boy” letters can protect him or her from the agency’s latest crackdown on insider trading should think again.
In the last two months of 2007, two top SEC officials said either in panel discussions or speeches that, regardless of the letters’ usefulness as a defense in private securities litigation, big boy letters carry no weight in the face of an SEC enforcement action, according to a recent client letter fired off by Cleary Gottlieb.
