I know an SEC lawyer. He admits that the SEC doesn't have the resources to go after the really big fish because they can afford to fight like hell in court, while the smaller fish are much easier to convict. So they have to pick their battles. Doesn't mean that they never go after the big ones but they'd have to have an overwhelming case, which is tough.
Insider trading regulations are intended precisely to punish small-time defectors from ongoing executive-suite conspiracies against the investing public. Prosecutors know very well that charging CxOs who trade their own firms on inside information would quickly result in Congress radically changing the relevant laws.
There really does need to be Congressional leadership here
US insider trading laws confuse the courts, waste all the appeals courts times, and unnecessarily burden everyone
The securities regulator just dangles a Sword of Damocles over everyone’s head without having a single “Insider Trading Act” to rely upon, just their own opinion leveraging their blanket fraud statute, curbstomped by the courts until its cranium is molded into narrowly tailored brain matter, with exceptions oozing out the ears into gutter
