Two brothers in Brazil have agreed to pay nearly $5 million to settle SEC charges that they were behind suspicious trading in call options for HJ Heinz Company the day before the firm announced its $28 billion acquisition by Berkshire Hathaway and 3G Capital.

The US authority said yesterday it filed an emergency enforcement action earlier this year to freeze assets in a Swiss-based trading account used to harvest some $1.8 million from trading in advance of the Heinz announcement. 

“The SEC’s immediate move the day after the announcement ensured the illicit profits could not be released out of the account while the investigation into the then-unknown traders continued,” it said in a statement.

The SEC now alleges, in an amended complaint, that the order to purchase the Heinz options was placed by Rodrigo Terpins, while the trading was based on non-public information he received from his brother Michel Terpins.

The trades were made through an account belonging to Alpine Swift, a Cayman Islands-based entity which holds assets for one of the brothers’ family members. The trade was then executed through an omnibus account at Goldman Sachs’ Zurich office. 

The settlement is subject to court approval and the investigation is ongoing.