Hi HN,<p>I am a software dev at a subsidiary of a publicly traded company. I am being offered an option to sign documents if I need access to the company's data. However, by signing the documents I will be giving up my rights to own the parent company's stock. I had the following questions:<p>1. Am I not allowed to hold stock of any of the subsidiaries of parent company(there are many across the world)?<p>2. Am I not allowed to hold derivative securities like etfs as well if they contain my parent company's stock?<p>3. Is this a standard procedure in the industry? To be honest, I need this access maybe once in a year. I don't need it for my day to day work.<p>4. If I use apps that use robo advisors for investing, am I responsible for the trades made by the robo advisor?<p>5. Is there anything else that I should be considering?
"Is this a standard procedure in the industry?" - this is really the only one I can comment on.<p>In many countries, there are strict laws around insider trading. Companies who are publically traded must take measures to ensure they are preventing this practice. As a result they will often need to maintain a list of "insiders", those with access to market sensitive data. As part of that, they will also usually put restrictions around your rights to trade in that companies public stock. The specific restrictions they impose will depend on the contract you're signing.<p>It's quite standard practice in countries with tough insider trading laws. I can't speak for how various companies decide to implement it though, or what the specifics are of what you are and aren't allowed to do.<p>Some companies will let you opt out of being an insider and after a certain period of time without access to market sensitive data you'll be free to trade like anyone else. Obviously if your job requires you to access that data a lot, this probably won't ever be an option for you.<p>Obviously there will be many people in the company who will be insiders, and after a certain point in the ladder everyone above you will be one due to the data they have access to. I'd imagine executives etc are insiders and under the same restrictions. However, that doesn't mean anything about what you're specifically allowed to do with your specific contracts.<p>As other comments have said, consult an attorney. In many countries the laws around insider trading can be quite tough. You don't want to get this wrong if you're considering trading the shares.
This is fairly common in the financial services industry.
It protects you as well as them.<p>In my experience, it covers 'directed' accounts -- ones
where you make the decisions. If your robo advisor (or a mutual fund) buys your company's stock, and you had no input in the decision, you'll be protected.<p>In my experience, you can hold ETFs so long as the weight of your company is relatively low. I wouldn't look over the financials and try to come up with a series of ETF trades that result in concentrated exposure to your stock though.
Hmm, how do people in finance deal with it? Can they not trade any stocks if they work at a place like Goldman who probably have their hands in everything?<p>It’s something I thought about recently, so also curious.