Equifax Web Site Designer Fined $50,000 And Confined To Home Over Insider Trading (zdnet.com) 105
An anonymous reader writes:
A 44-year-old, Georgia-based programmer -- who'd been working at Equifax since 2003 -- has been sentenced to eight months of home confinement and a $50,000 fine for insider trading. Working as Equifax's Production Development Manager of Software Engineering in August of 2017, he'd been asked to create a web site where customers could query a database to see if they were affected by a yet-to-be-announced security breach for a high-profile client. Guessing correctly that it was his own employer's breach, he'd used his wife's brokerage account to purchase $2,166.11 in "put" options betting that Equifax's stock price would tumble -- and when it did, he'd scored a hefty profit of $75,167.68.
"As part of his SEC settlement, he must also forfeit $75,979, the ill-gotten funds, plus interest," ZDNet reports, noting that the transactions "came to light after Equifax started internal investigations into several reported cases of employee insider trading." Another federal complaint also alleges that another Equifax executive avoided $117,000 in losses by selling all $1 million of his stock options -- the same day he'd performed a web search about how Experian's stock was affected by a 2015 security breach, but two weeks before Equifax's breach was announced. That case is still ongoing.
"As part of his SEC settlement, he must also forfeit $75,979, the ill-gotten funds, plus interest," ZDNet reports, noting that the transactions "came to light after Equifax started internal investigations into several reported cases of employee insider trading." Another federal complaint also alleges that another Equifax executive avoided $117,000 in losses by selling all $1 million of his stock options -- the same day he'd performed a web search about how Experian's stock was affected by a 2015 security breach, but two weeks before Equifax's breach was announced. That case is still ongoing.
Re:25K profit and a 6 month vacation (Score:5, Insightful)
He gets a 50k fine, forfeits all 75k in profits and his boss still hasn't gotten punished.
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He forfeits 75K in profits AND has a 50K fine. That's not "25K profit", it's a loss of 50K. Also he's sentenced to 8 months home confinement, not a "6 month vacation". I don't know about you, but I generally consider vacations to involve getting outside of my own home.
His boss not being punished is something we can agree is bad, but did you actually read the article before typing your outrage title?
His boss was arrested, facing multiple charges (Score:3)
The acting CIO, Jun Yung, actually has multiple federal charges. He's already done some jail time, and he's going to prison.
Funny how making shit up that is the opposite of the actual facts gets modded +4. People sure do enjoy being jealous of the boss.
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Wait a fricking' minute -- the article says he guessed. No crime took place.
He was smart, but he did nothing wrong but profit off of someone's deserved embarrassment.
The banks (some time ago) knew of their wrong-doing before the financial crisis, and no one
was punished. If I were writing software for a company and I guessed that the company would
do very well because of it, damn sure I'd do the same thing (there are contracts which prohibit
the buying of securities, but unless his contract / agreement had t
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Wait a fricking' minute -- the article says he guessed. No crime took place.
He guessed based on insider information. That is illegal.
He was smart
No he wasn't. If he was smart, he would have covered his tracks. Instead of investing under his own name, or his wife's name, he should have used a more distant relative or a friend that he trusted.
The banks (some time ago) knew of their wrong-doing before the financial crisis
No they didn't. They were astoundingly oblivious to the problems with mortgage based securities right up to the collapse.
Some people saw it coming, and made billions shorting MBSes, but they were not "the banks" (other than Goldman).
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Only small people get punished. If you are rich and powerful, you can nearly destroy the world and nothing is going to happen to you. Laws are just a means to control the masses, they are not for restricting anybody powerful.
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He forfeits $50,000 and six months on home arrest.
I'm sure a lot of innocent people lost money from this hack. Not all, but some..add this guy to the list.
The government is enforcing a rule meant to keep executives from 'throwing the game'.
In this case, the $75,000 he 'stole' is from an investment firm that steals this much every minute in microsecond transactions! Come on! This is a fucking *harsh* punishment for an average joe sort, which this guy seems to be. $2,000 is a very small amount to gamble.....
Finally (Score:5, Funny)
Finally, the guilty part was found and rightly punished. I think we call now sleep better at night.
Re: Finally (Score:1)
Except for th executives that stole a lot more money and will get away with no punishment.
CIO already arrested, facing multiple charges (Score:2)
The acting CIO has multiple federal charges. He's already done some jail time, and he's going to prison.
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Thank you ... you are a fine example of right wing NPC.
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"Government cant do anything right, put us in charge of it & we'll show you what we mean." -GOP
I think youre mistaking conservative inability to do anything right with an overall governmental inability. If you'd try electing responsible literate people from time to time, maybe you'd see better results.
So how did Equifax figure it out? (Score:1)
What I'm most curious about in this story, is how did Equifax figure out that this guy bought these put options? What kind of access does Equifax have to his wife's brokerage accounts?
Wow, talk about swift punishment (Score:4)
Guy got 75k out of it and gets arrested and fined 50 grand on top of having to forfeit everything he gotten that way. And confined to his home.
Say, how again were the C-Levels punished whose criminal negligence caused all this to happen in the first place? A couple millions probably. And confined to the home they built with those millions, I guess.
This country (Score:4, Insightful)
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The game makers ... (Score:2)
Guessing correctly? (Score:1)
So if he guessed correctly, he was never told who the client was?
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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I thought this too, it doesn't seem to merit the same punishment as actual inside trading.
People make guesses like this all the time and most guesses don't pay out. He was an insider who had a possible clue at best, not actual information. Suppose it wasn't equifax that was the subject of the breach, his options would expire worthless like most do and nobody would care.
This isn't like fictional Bill Stearns on Billions who says "I am not uncertain" when he's actually bribed insiders with sacks of cash for i
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His mistake, he should of put a put on all their stocks. ;-)
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What's next? Going to charge government contractors for doing option trading if they hear a government manager say a huge contract is about to be pulled? This is not what insider trading is supposed to be about,
Actually, that's exactly what insider trading is supposed to be about. Anytime you make stock market investment decisions (including sometimes, the decision not to buy or sell stock you otherwise would have) based on information that is not available to the general public, not matter how you obtained that information, you have committed insider trading. What did you think it means?
Idiot has no friends (Score:2)
Fancy using your own wife's account to short. Surely he must have known some other wives that he could have used? And only $2K with a hot tip like that?
I bet his much smarter managers made a hell of a lot more than that. With no record of whose wives they used.
The little guys cheat a bit... (Score:5, Interesting)
The little guys cheat a bit and get stomped on immediately.
Whereas the big bankers and wall street folks steal billions from us and get away scot free every day.
Just shows you how things are stacked. We need change.
So, what are you gonna do about it? (Score:2, Insightful)
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We all complain about this crap, but we also elect the same sorts of folks who allow it. Over and over again. There were plenty of viable primary challengers this time around who refuse corporate PAC money. Most lost. For all the talk nobody shows up to vote, or if they do they vote the incumbent because they want to be safe, stay the course.
Change often starts at the top. Both Clintons and Trump are both amazingly corrupt. Bernie would have been better but he was kept out by a corrupt Democratic National Party apparatus that had already decided who should be picked. Better luck next time.
Right now yeah (Score:2)
The Dems also have some folks who support issues that matter. I want single payer healthcare
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because the Ds at least have a small wing of the party that refuses corporate PAC money. There's gonna be at least 30 of them in the House after the election, maybe 40. I know of no such wing in the GOP. Even Rand Paul seems to be bought and paid for lately, having fallen in line with Trump on the various wars we're fighting (none of which have proper authorization or are even against countries that attacked us). The Dems also have some folks who support issues that matter. I want single payer healthcare because I've got friends and family that need medical care and who are in medicine. I want a $15 min wage because I want demand side economics instead of supply side. I want to end the wars and stop selling arms to the Saudis. There's a lot of Dems that won't do that (Pelosi, Schumer, etc) but there are some that will. Again, I don't know of any Republicans that support these policies. What I do know is they all poll in the mid to high 70s. Given that you'd think both sides would support them, but, well, now we circle back to the real problem, corporate PAC money. You can't serve two masters.
There are lots of issues that poll high yet get ignored. Trade deals are generally unpopular. Illegal immigration is very unpopular, despite the press doing every shady thing they can to drum up support ("undocumented immigrants" for example). Besides, I'm a Christian white male. I won't vote democrat because they literally hate me. I would have made an exception for Bernie though.
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These regulators got hired by Obama. Here is the secret. Both parties are paid by Wall Street and other industries. Only Beto in Texas who is running has not taken any money from a PAC. Sad, but a very real fucking problem.
Trump won't drain the swamp that Obama created as he is the swamp itself. It still happens and he has hired those with an R instead of a D next to their name but really perform the same job and make sure money gets sent to the master on the top. Oh, wait he will prosecute?! Then get a new
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Yep. Big banks even call clients to get numbers and sell ahead of time. Normal. This guy got busted because he thought he was big but not. The government's job is to protect the real sharks with a revolving door between government, lobbyist, and corporate jobs. If he worked for BOA for example he would not be charged.
And yet (Score:5, Informative)
No one has been held responsible for one of the largest data breaches in this country's history from this same company, nor has the company been fined in the U.S. for the data breach, whereas the fine in the UK was a piddling $500K.
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No one has been held responsible
According to this comment [slashdot.org] the CIO was held responsible and has received jail time.
Equifax should be illegal (Score:1)
Ban data aggregation companies
So the executive is being investigated ... (Score:2)
So the executive is being investigated but the peon is already penalized. If the executive is penalized, it is likely that they will be able to avoid at least some of the penalty and profit much more than the peon did.
Nice.