Unity CEO John Riccitiello reportedly sold thousands of shares of stock in the weeks ahead of the fee announcement.
Unity Backpedals on Its Horrible Plan for Game Install Fees Amid Developer Backlash::Unity CEO John Riccitiello reportedly sold thousands of shares of stock in the weeks ahead of the fee announcement.
I keep seeing this thing about the CEO selling shares. It was an automatic sell that was preplanned way in advance. That's what the rule 10b-5 trading plan means in the disclosures.
I don't see how this is a defense. If it's scheduled, he knows it's happening. He could have just delayed the announcement until the day after his shares were scheduled to sell, and the intention is the same. Having a schedule doesn't exempt you from insider trading, it's a procedure that needs to be followed.
On the other hand, the better defense here is that he's a multi millionaire or billionaire, and he sold like $80k worth of shares. If he was really intending to dump, he'd be selling like 100x this amount.
They know what was likely to happen and they knew when the sell was scheduled for. Tinfoil, but I assume the plan was for people to be disgruntled and devalue it enough for a buyout rather than result in half of game dev going scorched earth and significant parts of the company quitting.