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by Mike Caswell

Ross Haghighat, the Boston man convicted by a jury of insider trading charges arising from the takeover of Vancouver-Seattle biopharmaceutical listing Chinook Therapeutics Inc., has asked the judge for a new trial or to acquit him altogether. He says that there was no evidence he tipped others about a $3.2-billion deal to acquire Chinook in 2023. (All figures are in U.S. dollars.) There were plenty of other reasons to buy the stock, including favourable analyst reports and a short-seller's report that pushed the price down to a "blue-light special" level, Mr. Haghighat says.

The request from Mr. Haghighat, 62, comes less than two months after a jury convicted him on 17 counts of securities fraud and two related conspiracy counts. Prosecutors claimed that he tipped others in a scheme that generated $600,000 in gains based on a takeover offer from Novartis AG. He learned about the takeover through board meetings, the government said.

In a motion filed on Feb. 2, 2026, Mr. Haghighat complains that his conviction was improper, as the jury did not properly understand the legal hurdles required to make an insider trading conviction. The jury thought that it could enter a conviction based on implied trading tips, but the legal requirement was for an explicit tip, Mr. Haghighat contends. In other words, Mr. Haghighat was convicted simply because he had access to inside information and people connected to him bought the stock, the motion states.

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