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by Mike Caswell

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed new insider trading charges against Cedric Canas Maillard, a former executive at Banco Santander SA. The SEC claims it recently discovered that he controlled a Swiss account that bought Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan ahead of a $40-billion takeover offer for the company in 2010. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) He made the purchase based on information he obtained through his job, according to the SEC.

The charges are not the first against Mr. Canas. In 2014, he agreed to pay $1.9-million to settle a very similar case from the SEC. The regulator claimed that he made $917,239 buying highly leveraged contracts linked to the price of Potash Corp. ahead of BHP's takeover offer.

After that settlement, the SEC continued to investigate other suspicious trades in Potash Corp. The trades came from foreign accounts whose owners were not known at the time. The SEC says in recent weeks it discovered that Mr. Canas was the sole beneficial owner of a Swiss account that purchased a Potash Corp. option one day before BHP Billiton made a takeover bid.

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