Equifax says its executives didn’t insider trade

Equifax said on Friday that four of its executives who sold company stock in the days after its massive breach did not engage in insider trading.

The four executives were not aware of suspicious activity or a security breach of the firm when they sold their shares, according to a report by a special committee Equifax set up to investigate the matter.

{mosads}

The breach happened to occur during a month-long window, between July 28 and August 31, in which company executives were allowed to trade company shares, the report said.

The executives, Chief Financial Officer John Gamble, President of U.S. Information Solutions Joseph Loughran, President of Workforce Solutions Rodolfo Ploder and Senior Vice President of Investor Relations Douglas Brandberg, had not been notified of the breach at the time of selling their stocks.

{mosads}

Gamble first learned of the breach on Aug. 10, nine days after his trade cleared, according to the company. Loughran learned that there was a security issue on Aug. 13. The others were made aware during an Aug. 22 senior team meeting.

The special committee, advised by law firms Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, reviewed over 55,000 documents, composed of emails, text messages, phone logs and other records and also conducted interviews with Equifax employees who first spotted the breach.

The executives first came under scrutiny in the wake of Equifax publicly disclosing the breach when media reports noticed that they had dumped almost $2 million in the days following the breach, but before the breach was revealed to the public.

The company has firmly denied that the executives engaged in insider trading, but observers have been skeptical.

The Department of Justice is currently conducting its own investigation of the trades.