The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) charged Mark Cupo, former director of accounting and reporting at Sanofi-Aventis, with taking part in an insider trading ring involving executives from three pharmaceutical companies. The SEC alleged that the scheme, which operated from 2007 to 2012, generated $1.7 million in illegal profits and kickbacks by trading in advance of 11 public announcements involving mergers, a drug approval application, and quarterly earnings of pharmaceutical companies and medical technology firms. Cupo was also prosecuted by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Jersey in a parallel criminal investigation (see Sanofi-Aventis instance, “U.S. v. Cupo (Insider Trading)”).