The Department of Justice has reportedly opened a criminal investigation into whether three top Equifax officials violated insider trading laws when they sold company stock before a massive cyberbreach was made public.
Bob Page, a spokesman for Horn, would say only that federal prosecutors there are working with the FBI to conduct a criminal investigation of the cyberbreach and resulting theft of personal information.
The company first publicly disclosed the cyberbreach after financial markets closed on Sept. 7, announcing that personal identifying information for an estimated 143 million U.S. consumers could be compromised by a cybersecurity attack attributed to suspected criminal hackers.
Regulatory filings show the executives' Stock Sales were conducted in the days after Equifax discovered the cyberbreach, and long before the company notified investors and the public.
In order to prove insider-trading violations by those who sell their shares of company stock, prosecutors generally must have evidence showing that the sellers conducted the transactions based on material, non-public information.
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