Litigation Release No. 24541 / July 18, 2019
Securities and Exchange Commission v. Jun Ying, Case No. 1:18-CV-01069-TWT (N.D. Ga.)
On June 28, 2019, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia entered a final judgment on consent against a Georgia resident and former Equifax Inc. executive to resolve pending insider trading claims.
On March 14, 2018, the SEC charged Jun Ying with insider trading in connection with a September 2017 data breach announcement by Equifax disclosing that the company had been hacked, thereby exposing the personal information of about 148 million U.S. customers. The SEC’s complaint alleged that based on confidential information entrusted to him by Equifax, Ying exercised all his vested Equifax stock options and then sold the shares ahead of the announcement. As a result of his timely sales, Yang allegedly avoided losses of more than $117,000. In a parallel criminal case, Ying pled guilty and was sentenced to four months in prison and ordered to pay forfeiture of $117,117.
The final judgment in the SEC’s case permanently enjoins Ying from violating the antifraud provisions of Section 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 10(b) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and Rule 10b-5 thereunder, and orders him to pay disgorgement and prejudgment interest totaling $125,636. Ying’s payment obligation will be offset by the $117,117 forfeiture that he has already paid in the parallel criminal case. The final judgment also prohibits Ying from acting as an officer or director of any public company for a period of ten years.
The SEC’s litigation in this matter is now concluded.