On January 15, 2026, the Attorney General of the State of New York (NY A.G.) filed suit against Roger G. Kramer, the former CEO of Emergent BioSolutions, Inc., accusing him of insider trading for selling his shares in the company before disclosing contamination issues with the production of COVID-19 vaccines (see NY AG Press Release). In 2020, Emergent contracted with AstraZeneca PLC to manufacture its COVID-19 vaccine. In the weeks following that announcement, Emergent’ s stock price rose from $94.99 to $136.49. However, later in 2020, the company encountered manufacturing issues at its plant and discovered that many of the vaccines were contaminated and unusable.
The NY A.G. has accused Kramer of violating New York’s Martin Act, a state securities law that forbids the trading of stock by company insiders who are in possession of material non-public information. The NY A.G. alleges that Kramer sold his company shares and received more than $10 million before the contamination issues became public. Kramer allegedly did so pursuant to an October 2020 SEC Rule 10b5-1 trading plan, which was reviewed by Emergent’s in-house counsel and approved by Emergent in November 2020. Emergent agreed to pay a $900,000 civil fine for approving Kramer’s trading plan and vowed to improve its executive trading policies. The insider trading case against Kramer is being litigated.
This state-level insider trading case is particularly noteworthy. While the attorneys general and securities departments of certain states are historically more aggressive than others, including New York, it is rare for even the most aggressive states to charge insider trading cases. Insider trading cases are routinely charged by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and, when the evidence supports criminal charges, federal prosecutors. With the slowdown of SEC enforcement and federal white-collar cases in 2025 and perhaps beyond, is this NY A.G. insider trading case a sign of what the future may hold, with “blue” states looking to step in to fill a perceived securities and white-collar crime enforcement void? In all likelihood, the answer is a resounding “yes” — and firms and companies need to be prepared for increased enforcement scrutiny from certain states.
