Professor Joseph Grundfest explains why it’s unsurprising that the Supreme Court denied review of a recent insider trading case in this Daily News Journal article. 

The U.S. Supreme Court denied review of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision to overturn the insider trading conviction of two hedge fund managers on Monday, a decision that observers said will make it easier to avoid insider trading convictions and could result in a sea change in where lawsuits are filed.

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Stanford Law School professor Joseph A. Grundfest said that the Supreme Court denial of cert was entirely un-surprising due to the fact that the government conceded that the defendants could not be convicted.

“From that perspective, the government was asking the Supreme Court to undo 2nd Circuit dicta regarding the scope of the personal benefit test that the government finds objectionable.”

In a world in which the number of cases heard by the court is already quite low, Grundfest said, “it is easy to understand why the court would not want to allocate valuable docket time to a case in which the defendants are going to walk no matter what the court decides.”