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by Mike Caswell

The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has filed insider trading charges over the purchase of shares in former Toronto Stock Exchange listing U.S. Geothermal Inc. ahead of a takeover. The SEC claims that Moshe Strugano, an Israeli lawyer, bought shares of U.S. Geothermal after learning about the takeover through a friend. He later unloaded that stock for a $1.2-million profit, the SEC says. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.)

The allegations are contained in a civil complaint that the SEC filed on Wednesday, April 20, in federal court in New York. The complaint identifies Mr. Strugano, 52, as a lawyer at a firm he owned in Tel Aviv. Also a defendant is Rinat Gazit, 52, a woman who served as the head of mergers and acquisitions at Ormat Technologies Inc., a New York Stock Exchange listing.

The trading, as set out by the SEC, came ahead of a takeover offer that Ormat started planning in 2017. According to the complaint, Ormat and U.S. Geothermal were negotiating a takeover of U.S. Geothermal by Ormat for several months. As with all such takeovers, the potential acquisition was confidential. At Ormat, the name of the takeover target was kept strictly secret, with the deal going under the code name "Project Bono," the SEC says.

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