SEC : Former Equifax Executive Charged With Insider Trading

(RTTNews) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged a former chief information officer of a U.S. business unit of Equifax with insider trading in advance of the company's September 2017 announcement about a massive data breach that exposed the social security numbers and other personal information of about 148 million U.S. customers.

According to the SEC's complaint, Jun Ying, who was next in line to be the company's global CIO, allegedly used confidential information entrusted to him by the company to conclude that Equifax had suffered a serious breach.

The SEC alleged that before Equifax's public disclosure of the data breach, Ying exercised all of his vested Equifax stock options and then sold the shares, reaping proceeds of nearly $1 million. According to the complaint, by selling before public disclosure of the data breach, Ying avoided more than $117,000 in losses.

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia today announced parallel criminal charges against Ying.

The SEC's complaint charged Ying with violating the antifraud provisions of the federal securities laws and seeks disgorgement of ill-gotten gains plus interest, penalties, and injunctive relief.