A former Samsung manager has admitted in court that he leaked information about Apple’s iPad tablet to members of an expert network and a hedge fund before the device was launched. While testifying at the insider trading trial of Primary Global Research LLC executive James Fleishman, ex-Samsung manager Suk-Joo Hwang told jurors that he had been paid $38,000 to share information about Apple’s iPad before the device was announced in 2010. “One particular thing I remember vividly was that I talked about the shipment numbers of Apple, it was about iPad,” Hwang testified. “This is in December 2009, before it came out with the tablet PC, they didn’t know the name then, so I talked to them about the tablet shipment estimates in that meeting.” PGR’s Fleishman allegedly took the information he was given about Apple’s upcoming device and fed it to the firm’s hedge fund clients, a practice that the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has taken a particular interest in of late. Hwang was granted immunity in exchange for his testimony.
