1. Is this inside information?

You meet Lucy at a café and she starts telling you that she’s greatly worried about Mr Greenwood’s health. After lunch today he asked Lucy to call an ambulance. When it arrived he complained of pains in his left shoulder and chest and was perspiring profusely. The ambulance took Mr Greenwood to hospital, but the employees were told it was not very serious. Lucy, however, knows Mr Greenwood’s family has a history of heart trouble and that both his parents died of heart attacks.

2. Has the nature of the information changed?

3. Did Lucy have a right to give you this information?

It’s common knowledge that ‘Standard Software’ is so successful mainly thanks to Mr Greenwood’s talent. Under the circumstances the shares of the company are sure to go down because of his health problems.

4. Must you report the information to your superiors?

You are aware that if you reveal the information you will most certainly get Lucy into trouble.

5. Can you report the information without implicating Lucy?

You decide to keep the secret because it would be an unfriendly step to set up Lucy. However, you have a problem. Practically all analysts at your bank considered ‘Standard Software’ shares a “good buy”, so you invested all your savings in them. If the shares go down, you’ll lose a lot.

6. Suppose you sell the shares. Will it be insider trading?

You decide to sell the shares quickly hoping Mr Greenwood will soon recover.

You sell them, but the deal attracts attention because just a few days before you discussed the share prices with a co-worker and you both agreed that ‘Standard Software’ was a good investment.

7. Will your colleague remember it?

Unfortunately, Mr Greenwood dies at hospital. The shares of ‘Standard Software’ go down dramatically and your bank loses a lot of money. Your co-worker suspects you knew something when you sold your shares and reports it to your superior. The latter confronts you and makes you tell him the truth.

8. Will you be fired?

You must look for a new job, but your references leave much to be desired. Your only hope of getting a good job is to go to another bank and come up with some bright idea which would be attractive to them. Fortunately, when you were working for Midland Bank, you started thinking about a scheme raising money on the basis of floating exchange rates of currencies in South-East Asian countries.

9. Can you use these ideas outside Midland Bank?

When you were fired you returned all your records and notes to your superior at Midland Bank as your Contract of Employment required. Now you applied to Barkley Bank and suggested your scheme to them. They were greatly interested in the scheme and gave you a job in spite of your poor references. Your scheme is quite successful. Unfortunately, there happened to be a clash of interests between Midland Bank and Barkley Bank. Your former superior remembered that you had mentioned your scheme to him once though he wasn’t interested in it at the time. He also found some notes on it in the papers you had returned.

10. Will there be a law suit against you?

Now your motto in life is: “Keep your mouth shut!”