On Wednesday, October 5th, the Supreme Court heard oral\u00a0arguments in Salman v. United States, an insider trading case involving\u00a0an investment banker who provided his brother with information about\u00a0pending confidential business transactions. The brother, in turn, shared\u00a0the information with his brother-in-law, defendant Bassam Salman. The\u00a0case is about when a \u201cremote tippee\u201d\u2014a person who is steps removed\u00a0from an insider source and trades on inside information\u2014can be held\u00a0criminally liable for trading on the information. The Ninth Circuit held\u00a0that because the tippee had a \u201cclose familial relationship\u201d with the inside\u00a0source, he could be held criminally liable. This stands in contrast with\u00a0the Second Circuit\u2019s 2014 holding in United States v. Newman that the\u00a0exchange of information must pose potential pecuniary gain for the\u00a0insider who made the first disclosure, in order for a remote tippee to be\u00a0found criminally liable. On its face, Salman is a vehicle for the Court to\u00a0resolve the circuit split on this narrow issue. However, oral arguments\u00a0indicated that the Court may also use Salman as an opportunity to\u00a0examine and speak on the fundamental purposes of insider trading law.\u00a0This article is part of a two-part series about Salman. This piece presents\u00a0Salman\u2019s background and prior insider trading cases to shed light on the\u00a0precedential ambiguities the Court confronted during oral arguments. It\u00a0further discusses the flaws in both Salman\u2019s and the government\u2019s\u00a0arguments and potential repercussions of the Supreme Court adopting\u00a0either of the dueling standards. The second piece in this series will\u00a0explore scholars\u2019 proposals seeking to resolve the present difficulty of\u00a0determining tippee liability by focusing on whether the confidential\u00a0information was misappropriated.<\/p>\n