Melissa Mahler, a former Nixon Peabody lawyer, has reached a financial settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission to resolve the federal insider trading case filed against her last year.
Under the terms of the settlement, Mahler does not have to admit or deny the allegations lodged against her in exchange for paying back the $5,800 she made off the illegal trade, interest on that amount, and additional penalties.
In a suit filed against her in September, Mahler was accused of using information about a pending merger given to her by a client in 2004 to make an illegal profit when the deal was finalized. Mahler was a lawyer in Nixon Peabody’s Rochester, N.Y. office at the time. She resigned from the firm in 2005 and became a solo practitioner.
The final judgment in the case, which was handed down yesterday by Judge Paul Friedman of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, requires Mahler to pay a total of $13,792 within 10 business days to satisfy the terms of the settlement.
The judgment also requires her to agree not to engage in any similar misconduct in the future.
Her lawyer, Jamie Gardner of Patton Boggs, declined to comment on the case or whether Mahler faces any disciplinary charges.
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