If they know something we don't AND they won't tell us about that something if we ask about it, they have more information than us period.

I think the TSX defines material information as anything that could have an effect on the stock price if it were publicly known. So I would think that just knowing Teck was negotiating would be material information and they shouldn't be able to issue themselves options, or trade. If we knew Teck were negotiating we could assume all sorts of things including that the buyout price will be higher than the stock price today. Knowing that they couldn't have recently given themselves options as they did on January 23rd at an exercise price of $.94. (They could, of course, be in negotiations since they announced those in early February.)