Florida state professors settle naked short-selling case
Sarah N. Lynch, 01 February 2014
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Two Florida State University professors who specialize in financial markets and physics will pay more than $670,000 to settle civil charges that they carried out an illegal short-selling scheme using an elaborate options strategy, U.S. regulators said on Friday.
Gonul Colak and Milen Kostov settled with the Securities and Exchange Commission without admitting or denying the charges.
The SEC said the pair of researchers illegally reaped $420,000 through a complicated “naked” short-selling strategy in 20 different companies, including Sears Holding Corp and LinkedIn, among others.
Short-selling itself is not illegal.
