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The Mazor X Stealth robot-assisted surgical system. Source: Medtronic

A former Mazor Robotics VP is among three businessmen facing federal insider trading charges and an SEC lawsuit over stock trades leading up to Medtronic’s $1.6 billion acquisition announcement in 2018.

Ron Tavlin was Mazor’s VP of business development from 2017 to 2019. Before that, he’d been a paid consultant for Medtronic. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Minnesota and the SEC claim Tavlin tipped off his friend Afshin Farahan about the impending deal in 2018, and that Farahan then bought Mazor stock and tipped off friend David Gantman to buy more Mazor stock as well as call options.

Farahan and Gantman made a profit of about $500,000 off the allegedly illegal trades, according to authorities. More than a year late, Farahan gave Tavlin a $25,000 check.

Federal prosecutors also claim that when the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) reached out to Tavlin after the trades with a list of people and entities that had bought Mazor stock, Tavlin said he didn’t recognize any names — even though Farahan and Gantman were on the list.

Tavlin’s attorneys, Matt Forsgren and David Wallace-Jackson, told the Star Tribune of Minneapolis that Tavlin looks forward to telling his side of the story and that the government has drawn “every conceivable inference” against him.

Editor’s Note: This article was republished from sister website MassDevice.