UnitedHealth Stock Sales Prompt Lawmakers to Call for SEC Probe

Democratic US lawmakers led by Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren are asking the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate the timing of stock sales by UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s chairman and three executives.

The company officials netted a combined $101.5 million through trades made after the company was reportedly notified of an antitrust investigation but before the probe became public, Bloomberg News disclosed earlier this month. “The reports regarding these trades reveal a disturbing fact pattern,” the lawmakers wrote in a letter to SEC Chairman Gary Gensler this week.

The transactions occurred between October, when the health insurer reportedly learned of ...