Warren Presses Equifax on Senior Executive Charged with Insider Trading
Allegation Follows Equifax's Failure to Provide Timely and Complete Information about Massive Breach
Washington, DC - United States Senator Elizabeth Warren
(D-Mass.) sent a letter to Equifax's interim Chief Executive Officer Paulino do
Rego Barros Jr. about the Securities and Exchange Commission's (SEC)
announcement that it has charged Jun Ying, a former Equifax chief information
officer, with insider trading. Mr. Ying allegedly used confidential information
about Equifax's recent data breach to exercise stock options and secure a
massive personal profit. Senator Warren highlighted Equifax's failure to
prevent the breach, its botched response, and its inability to provide Congress
or the public with timely
and complete information. She asked Barros to provide a full accounting of
Equifax's knowledge of and actions in response to Mr. Ying's trading
activities.
This is not the first time that insider trading by Equifax executives has been
raised in relation to the breach. On November 3, 2017, Equifax released a Board
of Director's Special Committee report addressing concerns about insider trading
by four senior Equifax officials. The Committee ultimately concluded that none
of the four executives had engaged in insider trading. However, there was no
mention in this report, or any subsequent press releases, investigative
reports, senior executive statements made by Equifax or other information
provided to Congress and the public about any other senior executive who might
have engaged in insider trading.
Senator Warren noted that either the company's extensive investigation did not
reveal Mr. Ying's activities - or it did, but the company did not disclose this
information. "It is troubling that there are new charges of insider
trading against a senior Equifax official - four full months after the release
of your company's Special Committee report on insider trading. Given this
revelation, I have significant concerns about the adequacy of your company's
internal fraud detection procedures and recent investigations," wrote
Senator Warren. "I am also concerned with your company's possible
failure to disclose important information to Congress and the American people
about actions taken by senior executives in response to the Equifax
breach."
On March 14, 2018, the SEC alleged that Jun Ying, who was next in line to
become the company's global Chief lnformation Officer, learned of the company's
response to the breach before it became public and used this confidential
information to time the sale of his own stock options. In late August, days
before Equifax made the breach public, Mr. Ying allegedly "exercised all
of his vested Equifax stock options and then sold the shares, reaping proceeds
of nearly $1 million... [which caused him to avoid] ...more than $117,000 in
losses."
Senator Warren called on Equifax to provide answers on the company's knowledge
of and response to Mr. Ying's actions and to clarify the extent and impact of
the data breach to Americans and their senior executives by no later than March
29, 2018.
###
Next Article Previous Article
