For hedge fund lawyers and compliance professionals who are charged with protecting their institutions from allegations of trading on material, nonpublic information, “Big Boy” provisions, or disclaimers of reliance, are potentially helpful tools.  In the first of a two-part series of guest articles, Brian S. Fraser and Tamala E. Newbold, Partner and Staff Attorney, respectively, at Richards Kibbe & Orbe LLP, discuss the duty to disclose material, nonpublic information (or refrain from trading) and the differences between the Federal securities laws and New York common law on that issue, in particular, the “superior knowledge” trigger for the duty to disclose under New York law which has no Federal counterpart.  The second article in this series will focus on the usefulness of Big Boy provisions in securities and non-securities transactions and steps that will increase the likelihood a court will enforce a Big Boy provision; the discussion of New York law in that second article will focus on its application in secondary market bank loan transactions.