Two brothers in Brazil have agreed to pay nearly $5
million to settle SEC charges that they were behind suspicious trading in call
options for HJ Heinz Company the day before the firm announced its $28 billion acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital.

The US authority said yesterday it filed an emergency
enforcement action earlier this year to freeze assets in a Swiss-based trading
account used to harvest some $1.8 million from trading in advance of the Heinz
announcement. 

“The SEC’s immediate move the day after the announcement
ensured the illicit profits could not be released out of the account while the
investigation into the then-unknown traders continued,” it said in a statement.

The SEC now alleges, in an amended complaint, that the order to purchase the Heinz options
was placed by Rodrigo Terpins, while the trading was based on non-public
information he received from his brother Michel Terpins.

The trades were made through an account belonging to Alpine
Swift, a Cayman Islands-based entity which holds assets for one of the brothers’
family members. The trade was then executed
through an omnibus account at Goldman Sachs’ Zurich office. 

The settlement is subject to court approval and the
investigation is ongoing.