TECHNOLOGY : 3 Face VeriFone Insider Trading Charges

Three people were charged with insider trading related to Hewlett-Packard Co.’s 1997 acquisition of electronic-payment device maker VeriFone Inc., the Securities and Exchange Commission said. One of those charged was the ex-husband of former VeriFone marketing employee Amy Goodson. Goodson, who was not charged by the SEC, told her then-husband, Floyd Goodson, about the acquisition in a confidential conversation about job worries, the SEC said. Floyd Goodson, his father James, and John R. Fiser, a friend of James, now face SEC charges. Their alleged insider trading yielded $209,281 for two of the three, the SEC said. VeriFone’s stock price rose nearly 57% in April 1997 on news of the proposed acquisition by Hewlett-Packard, the world’s No. 2 computer maker. An attorney for the Goodsons, Wade Davies, said he doesn’t think Floyd or his father violated any laws.