Expert networks and traders of inside information are analytically separate categories, not synonyms. This has been the main failure of the press’ coverage of the insider trading scandal. Expert networks match experts with those in need of their expertise. That’s it. Done properly, they bring transparency and compliance to conversations that are otherwise already happening between outside experts and analysts. Expert networks are not clearinghouses for inside information.

Bloomberg News finally brought basic analysis to the discussion around expert networks, rather than the prevailing tone of crude refutation.

Dealbook provides a useful recap of the facts, essentially collecting many of the extant who and what’s that have been involved, along with a fresh set of juicy complaints.

There are users of expert networks, be they hedge funds or mutual funds, that have been known to put a good bit of pressure on the experts to give them more than what they know is permissible information. And anyone who put that kind of pressure on an expert should be very worried right now.

—Sean O’Malley, partner with White & Case: via Reuters

The information trafficked by the four ‘consultants’ went way beyond permissible market research. It was insider information.

—Janice Fedarcyk, a Federal Bureau of Investigation assistant director in charge of the investigation: via WSJ

Few hedge fund managers have the investment skill to deliver the benefits that they promise. They have to find an edge however they can — in this case through the expert networks.

—James Fanto, a professor at Brooklyn Law School in New York, mistaking expert networks for the ethical failings of those alleged to have traded in inside information: via Bloomberg