Gautham Shankar pleaded guilty on Oct. 20, 2009, to conspiracy to commit securities fraud and securities fraud. Shankar received Inside Information from a friend in advance of the publicly announced acquisitions of Kronos and Hilton. Shankar also received Inside Information from a proprietary trader at Schottenfeld in advance of the publicly announced acquisitions of Avaya, 3Com, and Axcan. Shankar shared the Inside Information, collected cash payments for certain of the Inside Information and, along with his co-conspirators, used the Inside Information to execute profitable securities transactions. Shankar made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits from his insider trading.