While nacchio was convicted of "insider trading", the trades were of the stock in <his own company>.
He was, in essence, convicted of not disseminating <honest> information to the public. The information that he was basically hiding, related to pre-merger qwest assets.
The purchase of US west provided a tactical means to merge a loss making entity with a profitable entity, and blend the accounting.
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In 2000, during Nacchio's tenure as Qwest CEO, the company acquired its regional rival US West. In 2002, Qwest admitted to false accounting during the time of the merger.[7]
The company was also involved in accounting scandals... [deals in] question were a series of deals from 1999 to 2001 with Enron's broadband division which may have helped Enron conceal losses.
He was convicted in 2007, but insider trading was alleged to have taken place much earlier (1999-2002), long before his relationship with the NSA supposedly went south.
"Former Qwest CEO Joseph Nacchio, convicted of insider trading in April 2007, alleged in appeal documents that the NSA requested that Qwest participate in its wiretapping program more than six months before September 11, 2001. Nacchio recalls the meeting as occurring on February 27, 2001. Nacchio further claims that the NSA cancelled a lucrative contract with Qwest as a result of Qwest's refusal to participate in the wiretapping program." [1]
Nacchio started selling stock earlier (see op cit) than that meeting. But its sort of beside the point. The information <he was hiding from the public> was information that long predated all of this. He was convicted of basically lying in the earlier SEC reports which is why he had <insider> information. It was harder to convict him on witholding material information, so they went after him (and won) for insider trading.
Unfortunately, his allegations about NSA are sort of irrelevant to wether or not he was guilty or not. His credibilty as a witness is shot not only by his conflict of interest (ie, he's trying to get out of jail) but also because he was convicted of a crime of fundamental dishonesty.
I don;t think there is much doubt that his general business tenure as CEO was sketchy at best in terms of integrity. That doesn;t make the NSA innocent, but it makes the Nacchio link much less interesting as a discussion piece. Nacchio is not any kind of hero figure or champion of integrity.
Thanks for your comment, it explains how your initial comment relates to his conviction. This article helped too. [1]
The basis of his conviction is that he made a prediction that the court found to be false, and the court found that he should have known it would be false.
If it's for say, predicting 2001/2002 revenue, he was convicted as lying to the SEC, it's possible that losing NSA/government contracts contributed.
I don't know the dates and so don't know for which year(s) he was convicted for making a false prediction. If it was earlier than 2002 it is probably as you say, run of the mill lying to the SEC.
His allegations are of retaliation, that he was given cruel and unusual attention because he refused to comply.
As regards whether it was retaliation, his credibility is shot.
I don't doubt that the meetings occurred, that qwest refused and that contracts were cancelled. In that regard even though he may be a liar, he did better than the CEO's of the other companies. I am sure if you subject any CEO to enough scrutiny you can convict them of something. Put it this way, I'd take a CEO who makes unrealistic predictions about revenue over one that silently allows warrantless wiretapping.
There's no way losing a couple NSA contacts sends a RBOC generating $4B of cash a year into a $2 stock and near bankruptcy. The way you do that, is you merge a massively unprofitable business into a blue chip one and pay the latter with massively inflated stock (viz: '99 internet bubble). After the bubble bursts, market wakes up, and the assets are found to be dogs. The $4B cash is now going to pay down the massive debts the combined entity took to finance the operating losses of the crappy side of the merger, but there is no growth in the supposedly high-growth part. The high-growth part was not a NSA/gov't driven biz plan, though. That would not have made sense or been credible plan on which to merge or raise capital (before 9/11 in particular).
Much easier explanation. According to the SEC/Jury/SupremeCourt etc.
I would suggest reading to the end of the article. What I wrote is not in contradiction to that, though I might note he asserted quite different defenses at trial.
