Goldman Sachs banker Woojae Jung was charged with insider trading on Thursday. A seven-count criminal complaint accused Jung, a vice president at the bank, of trading with an unidentified person nonpublic information he accessed while working at an investment bank which has offices in New York and San Francisco, CNBC reported.
The complaint did not mention the investment bank by name. “We are aware of the situation regarding Jung and are cooperating with legal authorities on the matter,” Goldman Sachs said in a statement. The bank also put Jung on indefinite leave.
CNBC said court documents showed that four stocks listed on the United States markets – WR Grace, Sandisk, KLA Tencor and Microsemi – are allegedly involved in the insider trading scheme. Jung accessed sensitive market information through the investment bank, which was involved in potential restructuring or acquisition deals.
In all, Jung and his associate traded in securities of 12 different companies based on nonpublic information and earned profits of about $1,40,000 (Rs 94 lakh) from 2015 to 2017, US market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Commission, said.
Jung purchased securities using a brokerage account held in the name of a friend from South Korea, the commission said. “Like others before him, Jung’s alleged scheme failed when our data analysis uncovered the account’s suspicious trading pattern and, despite Jung’s attempts at evasion, traced the trading back to him,” Joseph Sansone, chief of the commission’s market-abuse unit, told The Wall Street Journal.
The commission sought to ban the banker from trading on the stock market, and recovery of the profits he made. Jung faces a prison sentence if he is convicted.
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