apekurma: So let’s say you are a homeless guy who is riffling through the garbage looking for bottles, and you see information about a tender offer. So you buy options in the target. That would be criminal under Rule 14-e3.
There is no shliach, no meshaleiach, no anything. In fact the people who own the target stock now might not own it when the tender goes through anyway. And the people who are selling options certainly don’t own it, and would be selling options on the market to someone else anyway. In fact, maybe you are just helping them because you increased the demand for options and made them more expensive.