Comment by JoshTriplett
5 days ago
If you hold stock in company A, and your current company B acquires company A, that's not insider trading if you already owned the stock in company A before you had any information that company B was going to make that decision.
It is, however, a conflict of interest for you to be involved in company B's acquisition of company A (e.g. influencing company B to buy company A), and might even rise to the level of a breach of your fiduciary duty to company B.
I know a woman who was part of a M&A team. On her first day, she was told her days of owning individual stocks in the industry were over. She could only purchase aggregate funds. Although, I do wonder if the same rules apply to the VPs who actually have to sign off on the deals.