Man Pleads Guilty to Insider Trading After Overhearing Wife’s Work Calls

A Texas man pleaded guilty to insider trading after he was accused of making $1.7 million in illegal profits by purchasing and selling stocks based on his wife’s work conversations, which he had overheard while she was working remotely at home, federal prosecutors said on Thursday.

The man, Tyler Loudon, of Houston, bought 46,450 shares of stock in the truck stop and travel center company TravelCenters of America after he heard his wife discuss her employer’s proposed acquisition of it, according to a complaint filed in the Southern District of Texas by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Mr. Loudon’s wife, who is not named in court documents, was a mergers and acquisitions manager at BP, a British oil and gas company, the complaint said.

On Feb. 16, 2023, TravelCenters of America announced that it had agreed to be acquired by BP, sending its stock prices soaring by 70.8 percent.

Mr. Loudon immediately sold all of his stock, which he had bought without his wife’s knowledge, according to court documents.

“Mr. Loudon made a terrible mistake in judgment for which he has taken full responsibility,” Mr. Loudon’s lawyer, Peter Zeidenberg, said in an email.