Foot Locker executive conducted insider trading after being fired, SEC says

By Jonathan Stempel

NEW YORK (Reuters) -A former Foot Locker executive will pay $235,714 to settle U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission insider trading charges, including over a trade he made nine days after being laid off, the regulator said on Tuesday.

Barry Siegel, who had been senior director of order planning management, agreed to the civil settlement after allegedly using material nonpublic information about sales and inventories to trade prior to two Foot Locker earnings announcements.

The SEC said the 56-year-old Manhattan resident profited illegally by successfully betting prior to Foot Locker's quarterly results on May 19, 2023 and Aug. 23, 2023 that the footwear and clothing retailer's stock price would fall.

In both cases, the New York-based company reported falling sales, rising inventories and a reliance on discounting, causing its stock price to fall more than 27% and 28%, respectively.

The SEC said Siegel's second short sale occurred on Aug. 18, 2023, nine days after Foot Locker terminated him in a round of corporate layoffs. He had worked for Foot Locker from 1998 to 2006, and from 2011 to 2023, the SEC said.

Siegel did not admit wrongdoing in agreeing to settle.

"We obviously looked to put this behind Barry as soon as it came up, and we worked with the SEC to get that done," Siegel's lawyer Jeffrey Lichtman said in an interview.

The payment includes $112,869 of disgorged profit, a $112,869 civil fine, and interest.

Foot Locker was not accused of wrongdoing. The company is planning to move its headquarters to St. Petersburg, Florida.

(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot and Marguerita Choy)