The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has filed fraud charges against a Hong Kong-based company that allegedly hacked into corporate servers to access advance PR filings and made at least $2.7 million in the past two months by trading on the stolen data.
The regulator has obtained an emergency asset freeze against Blue Bottle - which is described as an accounting and tax consultancy - and its owner Matthew Charles Stokes.
The Commission alleges that the defendents fraudulently gained access to non-public information using illegal "devices and schemes" which may include hacking into computer networks and gaining electronic access to systems that contain information about imminent news releases.
The firm is accused of using the stolen data to trade in securities of at least 12 US companies, including AllianceBernstein, Symantec and RealNetworks.
Furthermore, the complaint accuses Blue Bottle and Stokes of using false information and fake documents to open an online trading account through which they executed the illegal trades.
Blue Bottle is thought to have made a profit of at least $2.7 million since the illegal trading began in early January 2007, says the SEC.
The SEC has secured an order from US District Judge Charles Haight in New York for Blue Bottle to repatriate funds transferred to overseas accounts.
The court has ordered the defendants to appear on 7 March 2007.
Last year the SEC filed charges against an Estonian financial services firm and two of its employees who used a 'spider' program to steal advance PR filings from the Business Wire Web site. The pair were thought to have made at least $7.8 million by illegally trading on the stolen data.
Kristjan Lepik, of Tallinn, later agreed to pay a $15,000 fine to settle electronic theft charges and return more than $550,000 of trading profits without admitting or denying allegations.