SEC Subpoenas Four MarketWatch Executives
By Lisa Baertlein, Reuters
SAN FRANCISCO (April 7) - Federal regulators have subpoenaed the stock-trading records of four top officials of MarketWatch.com Inc., including its chairman and chief editor, as part of a probe into the trades of co-founder Thom Calandra, the financial news service said on Tuesday.
The Securities and Exchange Commission sent subpoenas to Larry Kramer, MarketWatch's chairman and chief executive, Editor-in-Chief David Callaway, Chief Technology Officer Jamie Thingelstad, and Bill Bishop, general manager of consumer Internet properties, MarketWatch General Counsel Doug Appleton told Reuters.
Callaway declined comment. The other executives, as well as a spokesman for the SEC, could not be immediately reached for comment.
The subpoenas called for the executives' personal trading records from March through December 2003, a period that roughly coincided with the publication of ''The Calandra Report,'' a subscription newsletter with stock research and recommendations written by Calandra, Appleton said.
''We don't know why the SEC selected these individuals. We can only surmise it's because they had supervision over Calandra or 'The Calandra Report,' or potentially had access to the report prior to publication,'' Appleton said.
Calandra resigned in January amid company and regulatory probes into his trading activities. Calandra refused to turn trading records over to the company and no longer has ties to MarketWatch, Appleton said.
MarketWatch has been turning over e-mail and documents from Calandra's computer to regulators under a previously issued subpoena, he said.
''We do not have any information that these individuals traded on nonpublic information communicated by Calandra,'' Appleton said.
MarketWatch.com operates two Web sites, CBSMarketwatch.com and BigCharts.com, and is 33 percent owned by Viacom Inc.'s CBS Enterprises unit and 33 percent owned by British publishers Pearson Plc.
Electronic publisher Thomson Corp. last week said its financial arm would partner with MarketWatch.com to develop a customized new service, to compete with real-time information services offered by Reuters Group Plc. and Bloomberg LP.
(Additional reporting by Duncan Martell and Michael Kahn in San Francisco)
Reut20:30 04-06-04
