Consultant Fined for Insider Trading

A federal judge in Los Angeles has ordered Roger D. Wyatt of Houston to pay $209,205 in fines and civil penalties for insider trading in the stock of Los Angeles-based Chantal Pharmaceutical Corp., a maker of anti-wrinkle cream. The Securities and Exchange Commission filed a 1996 complaint against Wyatt, a former consultant to Chantal, for selling stock in 1993 based on inside information that Upjohn Co. had terminated a licensing agreement with Chantal following disappointing clinical test results for an anti-acne drug, cyoctol. The SEC complaint also alleges that Wyatt passed insider information about cyoctol test results to David L. Holewinski, a friend and business associate, who sold his shares shortly before Chantal disclosed the cyoctol results. The SEC said Holewinski is still a defendant in the case. In 1996, Chantal’s accounting firm abruptly resigned and its chief financial officer, Gary Burnison, quit. Chantal’s shares closed unchanged at 16 cents on Nasdaq.