Fifteen individuals have been accused of insider trading in shares of NVIDIA, including nine of the graphics maker’s engineers. The 15 are accused of making US$1.7 million in illegal profits in March of 2000 after they learned that NVIDIA was near to closing a deal with Microsoft. Shares of NVIDIA more than doubled on March 20, 2000 after Microsoft announced that NVIDIA would be supplying the graphics chips for the company’s Xbox console. The Securities and Exchange Commission announced this afternoon that it had already reached settlements with two of the defendants; the SEC is seeking a return of those profits, as well as civil penalities of up to three times the profits. NVIDIA supplies the graphics cards used in Apple’s Power Mac G4 and earlier this year launched its next-generation GeForce 3 card on the Mac first.