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Global

Executive charged with insider trading ahead of eBay acquisition


    (Reuters) - U.S. regulators have charged a former executive with insider trading for tipping family and friends in advance of eBay Inc's purchase of the e-commerce company where he worked about the pending acquisition.

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said the former executive Christopher Saridakis, who had led the marketing solutions division of GSI Commerce, was also criminally charged by federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania.

    Saridakis agreed to pay $664,822 and accept an officer and director ban to settle the SEC charges, the regulator said.

    Separately, the SEC said five people who allegedly traded on tips about GSI agreed to pay more than $490,000 to settle related charges.

    It also said it entered a non-prosecution agreement with an unnamed individual who provided "extraordinary cooperation" in the investigation, its first such agreement with an individual.

    (Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York and Sarah N. Lynch in Washington, D.C.)