Matt Levine, Columnist

Securities Fraud Was Lurking in the Orca Pool

SeaWorld lied about "Blackfish." When it confessed, the stock dropped.

September 21, 2018 at 12:00 PM EDT

Matt Levine is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. A former investment banker at Goldman Sachs, he was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; a clerk for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 3rd Circuit; and an editor of Dealbreaker.

Witness the “Blackfish” effect. — Witness the “Blackfish” effect.
Photographer: Wolfgang Kaehler/LightRocket

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This post originally appeared in Money Stuff.

If a captive killer whale, stressed by the conditions of its captivity, kills its trainer, is that securities fraud? Sure! Everything is securities fraud! I mean, the Securities and Exchange Commission will not ban the whale from the securities industry. But if someone makes a film alleging that conditions at SeaWorld parks cause stress on killer whales that leads them to lash out at trainers, and if that documentary damages SeaWorld’s brand and causes a drop in revenue, and if SeaWorld downplays the effect of the film on revenue, then sure, why not, securities fraud:

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