A high-ranking Equifax executive pleaded not guilty in an Atlanta courtroom today to insider trading charges.
42-year-old Jun Ying was led into the courtroom in handcuffs. The U.S. Attorney has charged him with selling $950,000 worth of Equifax stock before the public knew about a massive data breach at the credit monitoring company.
Ying was Chief Information Officer for the Atlanta-based company when the data breach happened. Private information for more than 145 million Americans was compromised. That’s almost half the U.S. population.
The breach happened in the summer of 2017 after hackers gained access to personal information ranging from names, Social Security numbers, birth dates, and addresses. Ying was in his information officer position during that time and was aware of the breach before the public was ever made aware.
In August of that year, he texted a co-worker that the breach they were working on "sounds bad" and that "we may be the one breached."
The following Monday, Ying then searched the web for the impact of Experian's 2015 data breach on its stock price.
Not long after that, he exercised all of his available stock options held at UBS Financial Services and received 6,815 shares of Equifax stock that he then sold. Ying received proceeds of over $950,000, gaining roughly 480,000. It wasn't until Sept. 7 that Equifax publicly announced the breach which led to the stock falling.
Ying, an Atlanta resident, was indicted on Tuesday.
"The alleged actions of this defendant undermine the public's confidence in the nation's stock markets," FBI Special Agent in Charge David J. LeValley said. “By prosecuting cases like this, the FBI and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission are sending a strong message to company insiders that they must follow the same rules that govern regular investors. Otherwise, they face the severe consequences for failing to do so.”
The judge ordered Ying could be released on $100,000 bond.