Feng Li / Getty Images
The Securities and Exchange Commission has filed a civil lawsuit accusing a former Goldman Sachs employee with using the company's own surveillance software to access insider information on upcoming takeovers and make illicit trades.Yue Han made more than $450,000 in illicit profits by buying shares of Yodlee, Zulily, Rentrak and KLA-Tencor Corp, the regulator said today. He also used his father, Wei Han's, trading account.Han began working at Goldman late last year and was "assigned to a group tasked with enhancing the firm’s ability to conduct electronic surveillance of its employees in order to identify insider trading and other misconduct," the SEC said. He had access to top bankers' emails as part of his work developing surveillance software to monitor for potential misconduct like insider trading.
Separately, Reuters reported Han has fled to China, where he is a citizen. Han told Reuters in an email that the SEC's claims "not true" and said he would have a lawyer respond to the lawsuit.
"If these allegations are true, Han violated our trust and ignored extensive training that he received," a spokesman for Goldman Sachs told Business Insider. "So we are pleased that the authorities are pursuing action against him."
“We allege that Han’s employer gave him access to confidential information so that he could help the firm detect and deter illegal activity, but he betrayed that trust by using the information for his own profit,” said Joseph G. Sansone, Co-Chief of the SEC Enforcement Division’s Market Abuse Unit. “Fortunately the SEC staff’s probing analysis uncovered Han’s suspicious trading and enabled us to obtain an asset freeze before he could dissipate his ill-gotten gains.”
Business Insider attempted to reach out to Han through social networks and did not receive a response.
NOW WATCH: This giant blue diamond could sell for up to $55 million
See Also:
