Dow Jones director, SEC settle over stock case
A Los Angeles corporate director has acknowledged to federal securities regulators that she failed to report her sales of nearly $17 million of stock in a company on whose board she sits.</br></br>That wouldn't necessarily be noteworthy, except that the woman is Bettina Bancroft, a director since 1982 of Dow Jones & Co., publisher of the Wall Street Journal. She is the great-granddaughter of Clarence Barron, the Boston tycoon who built the Journal, the financial publication Barron's and the Dow Jones ticker, all of which deliver stock market news to millions of people each day.</br></br>Bancroft has signed an order with the Securities and Exchange Commission, in which she neither admits nor denies wrongdoing, and agrees to permanently cease and desist from any securities violations. Although no penalties were assessed against her, there could be fines for any future violations, according to the SEC.</br></br>Under current securities laws, directors of publicly held companies must file forms notifying the SEC when they buy or sell stock in those companies. The rule is designed to deter trading on insider information and to let other shareholders of the company know that directors are buying or selling stock.</br></br>The SEC did not suggest in any way that Bancroft had traded on inside information or deliberately concealed the sales.