NEW YORK, Jan 15 (Reuters) – A former chief executive of Emergent BioSolutions was charged on Thursday with insider trading by New York Attorney General Letitia James for allegedly selling the contract drug manufacturer’s stock while knowing about contamination problems at a Baltimore plant that made COVID-19 vaccines.
Robert Kramer was accused in the civil lawsuit of violating the Martin Act, a powerful state securities law, by generating $10.12 million of illegal profit under a so-called 10b5-1 stock trading plan he set up shortly after learning in October 2020 about tainted batches of AstraZeneca vaccines at Emergent’s plant.
The sales ended shortly before Emergent’s share price began declining as concerns mounted about the plant, where vaccine production was halted in April 2021 because of contamination…