Ann: Voluntary suspension, page-87

people involved in deals such as lawyers, bankers, accountants and yes even investor relatiuons firms may get information on deals as the deal are being done. the investor relations people are involved at the point when the deal is done and there is a market release that needs to be made. they are insiders and the relevant professional firms should have processes for managing the fact that they have inside info. example you and your family members may not trade in any stocks you are advising on. harder part is making sure they are not passing on the info they have for others to trade. the big data analysis shows that stocks with inside info in the mix (ie deals being done) do tend to outperform ahead of price sensetive/deal announcements. this suggests that on avergae the information does leak out in some way. those leaks can be explicit breaches of the law or they could be less intentional in that person x knows that Bob does most of his work for listed company Y .Over the years he has noticed that whenever Bob cant make friday drinks for 4 weeks in a row then company Y usually makes a material announcement...the deal that Bob has been working on. you can put 2 and 2 together and make an educated guess that a deal is pending. if you know whats mooted for the company you can guess what that deal might be.