For example, how would the potential buyer of stock in the Dutch East India Company know if the fleet of ships returning in several months would have a cargo laden with exotic spices or whether its trove had been plundered by pirates? Worse, what if someone in the Dutch East India Company did know that the fleet’s cargo had been stolen by pirates and kept that information quiet in order to sell stock in the company at a high price to buyers who did not have that information? This problem, today infamously known as insider trading, is as old as the spice trade.
