If so, that would appear to cross the line from simple information-gathering by people outside a company to sharing of potentially material information by employees who have a duty to keepitconfidential.
"Insider trading basically comes down to where you know or ought to know that the person from whom you're getting this information has a duty to someone else to keepitconfidential, " said former Securities and Exchange Commissioner Paul Atkins in a video interview with The Wall Street Journal.
While an NDA is an important legal contract that binds the signer to keepconfidential information confidential, it typically does not provide clear guidance about how the signer should accomplish this responsibility.