A former Perella Weinberg Partners investment banker faces criminal insider trading charges for informing his father of Becton Dickinson's ($BDX) deal to purchase CareFusion for $12.2 billion in 2014.
Defendant Sean Stewart's bid to dismiss the criminal charges did not convince U.S. District Judge Laura Taylor Swain.
"Stewart's arguments are overblown, unfounded and unavailing," she wrote, according to Reuters.
The indictment also alleges that the 34-year-old informed his father of Linde AG's purchase of respiratory device company Lincare Holdings.
Stewart and his partners apparently made $1.16 million in profits.
The ruling comes on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court's announcement that it will consider a case about the evidence needed to obtain a conviction needed for insider trading, Reuters reports.
Med tech stocks and acquisitions seem to be in the crosshairs of insider traders.
The SEC in September fined three investors about $170,000 for allegedly committing insider trading in relation to GE's ($GE) acquisition of cancer diagnostic and laboratory services company Clarient in October 2010.
And the agency in August alleged that a group of investors made $3.6 million by short-selling shares of Edwards Lifesciences ($EW) based on an earnings release they accessed before the public. It charged the 32 defendants with fraud for hacking into news wire services to make illegal trades that generated more than $100 million in profits.
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