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by Mike Caswell

The Alberta Securities Commission has fined a Calgary oil and gas employee $400,000 and has banned her for 10 years for insider trading. The ASC says that Behjat Haghshenas traded ahead of the $500-million takeover of Leucrotta Exploration Inc. in January, 2022. She learned about the deal through her job, and placed orders to buy Leucrotta using a trading account in her husband's name, according to the ASC.

The sanctions for Ms. Haghshenas are contained in a settlement agreement that the ASC released on Wednesday, Dec. 27. The agreement identifies Ms. Haghshenas as an employee of Vermilion Energy Inc., where she worked as a senior reservoir engineer until June, 2023. The settlement arises from a takeover agreement that Leucrotta and Vermilion began discussing in January, 2022. According to the ASC, Ms. Haghshenas was part of a group at Vermilion tasked with examining the assets of Leucrotta. That became her primary job in the months leading up to the deal becoming public. As part of her work, Ms. Haghshenas learned that Vermilion was in serious negotiations with Leucrotta for a potential acquisition, the settlement states.

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