Former Equifax Executive Charged With Insider Trading

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday charged a former executive at credit reporting firm Equifax with insider trading after he sold nearly $1 million in stock options before the company made public its massive data breach in early September.

Jun Ying, 42, the former chief information officer at Atlanta-based Equifax, faces criminal and civil charges, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Northern District of Georgia.

Equifax first discovered its systems had been compromised on July 29, 2017 — 40 days before it made the disclosure public. Ying allegedly first learned of the breach on Aug. 25, 2017, which was nearly two weeks prior to the information was made public.

By selling his stock options prior to the announcement of the breach, Ying avoided about $117,000 in losses that he would have incurred had he sold the stock after Sept. 7.

Following the announcement of the breach, Equifax’s (EFX) price of shares dropped nearly 35 percent in a matter of days. Equifax's price of shares have risen in recent months but have yet to reach the price at which Ying sold his options.

“As alleged in our complaint, Ying used confidential information to conclude that his company had suffered a massive data breach, and he dumped his stock before the news went public,” Richard R. Best, Director of the SEC’s Atlanta Regional Office, said. “Corporate insiders who learn inside information, including information about material cyber intrusions, cannot betray shareholders for their own financial benefit.”

Equifax's interim CEO Paulino Do Rego Barros, Jr., issued a statement that claims Equifax “launched a review” of Ying’s trading activity and “concluded he violated our company’s trading policies, separated him from the company and reported our findings to government authorities.”

Equifax previously cleared four of its executives of any wrongdoing following an internal investigation into the sale of stock options prior to the breach being made public. The four executives sold off nearly $1.8 million in stock options during the 40-day window that Equifax kept the breach under wraps. The company made no mention of Ying in its prior disclosure regarding investigations into alleged insider trading.

According to Barros, Equifax is cooperating with the Department of Justice and the SEC in their investigations. “We take corporate governance and compliance very seriously, and will not tolerate violations of our policies,” Barros said.

The charges from the SEC mark the first public punishment to be brought against Equifax and the executives who had knowledge of the company’s massive security breach.

According to Reuters, an investigation into Equifax led by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) had been put on hold by agency director Mick Mulvaney.

Earlier this month, the CFPB accepted a petition calling for a full-scale investigation into Equifax. The petition was launched by tech firm Mozilla and signed by more than 27,000 Americans.

“At Mozilla, we believe individuals’ security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional. It’s a belief enshrined in our founding principles. The decision not to pursue a robust investigation into Equifax is a violation of that belief, and so Mozilla — and tens of thousands of Americans — are urging Mulvaney to change course,” Ashley Boyd, Mozilla's Vice President of Advocacy, told International Business Times in an email.

Equifax still faces investigations by attorneys general of all 50 states and has been the subject of more than 240 class action lawsuits over the breach.