The Securities and Exchange Commission pointed that a former Qualcomm employee, Andres Leyva accumulated $34,700 in profits last year while being associated with the company as Director of Strategic Marketing Analysis.

Last year when Nokia and Qualcomm were involved in a dispute related to licence fees, Leyva came to know that Nokia had increased upfront payment offer from $ 500 million to $ 2.5 billion. Subsequently he bought call options at 39 cents each that gave him the right to buy shares of Qualcomm stock at $50. This was on July 22, 2008.

A day later the case came for hearing and it was announced that Qualcomm and Nokia had agree to settle the lawsuit. Then on July 24, 2008, when Qualcomm’s stock price increased by 17% to $ 52.43, Leyva sold the call option contracts that day.

Qualcomm took notice of this and terminated Leyva’s services on August 25 last year.

The Commission is seeking payment from Leyva including the profits earned as well as fine three times the amount of profit earned.