Merck & Co., Inc. (NYSE: MRK), dba Merck Sharp & Dohme, MSD outside the United States and Canada, is one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Merck headquarters is located in Whitehouse Station, New Jersey. The company was established in 1891 as the United States subsidiary of the German company now known as Merck KGaA. Merck & Co. was confiscated by the US government during World War I and subsequently established as an independent American company. It is currently one of the World's seven largest pharmaceutical companies by market capitalization and revenue.

The company describes itself as "a global research-driven pharmaceutical company" that "discovers, develops, manufactures and markets a broad range of innovative products to improve human and animal health, directly and through its joint ventures".

Merck also publishes The Merck Manuals, a series of medical reference books for physicians, nurses, and technicians. These include the Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, the world's best-selling medical textbook, and the Merck Index, a compendium of chemical compounds.

Peter R. Kellogg (1943) is an American businessman and philanthropist with a net worth estimated by Forbes at around $2.3 billion.

Peter attended Berkshire School in Sheffield, MA. He is the son of James Crane Kellogg, Jr. of Wall Street specialist firm Spear, Leeds & Kellogg; he joined his father's firm in 1967 after working at Dominick & Dominick. His fortune is primarily from his successful leadership of Spear, Leeds & Kellogg in the 1980s through to its sale in 2000 to Goldman Sachs for a reported $6.5 billion.. Kellogg attended Babson College, however later dropped out.

The NASD had publicly announced on November 3, 2003 that it “filed a disciplinary action against Peter Kellogg alleging that he directed fraudulent wash trades and matched trades between four accounts he controlled”. Wash sales are trades of securities without a real change in ownership of the securities traded. Matched orders are orders to buy or sell securities that are entered with knowledge that a matching order on the opposite side has been or will be entered.