A couple living in Hong Kong have been accused of making a profit of over $8 million by using "inside information" in connection with Rupert Murdoch''s bid to take over the Wall Street Journal.
The couple, Kan Wing Wong and his wife Charlotte Ka On Wong, it's alleged bought $16 million worth of stock in Dow Jones, the company that owns the Wall Street Journal, ahead of the announcement that News Corp was trying to buy the company. They bought the shares between April 13 and April 30, just days before the Murdoch bid was revealed.
The American Securities and Exchange Commission, the watchdog of Wall Street, in a suit filed in New York, accused the couple of making "highly profitable and highly suspicious " stock purchases.
After the Murdoch bid for Dow Jones was disclosed on May 1 stock in the company jumped almost 60 per cent. The lawsuit follows reports that editors of the Wall Street Journal knew about Murdoch\'s projected bid at least a week before the news broke, but did not report it. The editor in charge. Paul Steiger, according the NY Times, did not run a story because he believed it was "privileged information".
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As a result the WSJ was beaten to its own story. The news of the bid was broken by CNBC, an American financial news network.
In a US survey almost 40 per cent of respondents said they felt the Wall Street Journal should have run the story. Only 20 per cent felt the Journal\'s editors had an obligation or responsibility to hold the story.
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