SEC Charges Twilio Engineers With Insider Trading

(RTTNews) - The Securities and Exchange Commission has charged seven Indian-origin persons, including three software engineers of Twilio Inc., for involvement in an insider trading scheme.

SEC announced insider trading charges against three software engineers employed at Twilio and four family members and friends for allegedly generating more than $1 million in collective profits by insider trading ahead of the company's positive first quarter 2020 earnings announcement on May 6, 2020.

According to the SEC's complaint, friends Hari Sure, Lokesh Lagudu and Chotu Pulagam were software engineers at Twilio and had access to various databases relevant to the company's reporting of revenue. They came to know that Twilio's customers had increased their usage of the company's products and services in response to health measures taken in light of the Covid-19 pandemic, and concluded in a joint chat that Twilio's stock price would "rise for sure."

Sure, Lagudu and Chotu Pulagam then tipped off their family and close friends Dileep Kamujula, Sai Nekkalapudi, Abhishek Dharmapurikar and Chetan Pulagam to trade Twilio options and stock in advance of its May 6, 2020 earnings announcement while in possession of the confidential information concerning customer usage.

The scheme generated more than $1 million in illegal trading profits.

"We allege that this insider trading ring took advantage of valuable revenue information related to the pandemic at a San Francisco tech company," said Monique Winkler, Acting Regional Director of the SEC's San Francisco Regional Office. "We are holding these alleged tippers and tippees accountable for their roles in the scheme."