MOSCOW, November 18 (RAPSI) – Russian traders Alexander Fedoseyev and Roman Lavlinsky are to pay disgorgement of about $1.2 million in a civil lawsuit filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to court records.

The U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey has approved a settlement that the SEC reached with Fedoseyev and Lavlinsky.

The SEC filed a lawsuit in August 2015 against 34 suspects, including individuals and entities residing and registered in Russia, the US, France, Ukraine, Cyprus, and Malta.

The U.S. regulator claims that the suspects perpetrated an international fraudulent scheme by hacking the computer servers of at least two newswire services and stealing confidential earnings information for numerous publicly-traded companies from press releases that had not yet been released to the public. That stolen nonpublic information was then used to trade securities and reap over $100 million in unlawful profits.

The U.S. regulator alleges that the information was acquired in 2012 through 2014 from Ukrainian hackers Ivan Turchinov and Alexander Yeremenko. 

By early November, SEC reached settlements with 13 suspects who agreed to pay disgorgement totaling $53 million. The list includes David Amaryan who resides in Moscow and controls a number of funds registered in the British Virgin Islands and Cayman Islands.  They were ordered to pay $10 million. Ukraine-based Capital Partners and its principal, Andriy Supranonok, were ordered to pay $30 million. 

SEC filed in February a suit against nine other suspects, including four residents of St. Petersburg and Russian national Anton Maslov, the owner of Tarek Investors. 

Meantime, the US Attorney's Offices for the District of New Jersey and the Eastern District of New York initiated a criminal case against five suspects in the case. Three of them (Arkady Dubovy and his son Igor, as well as Alexander Garkusha), pleaded guilty.