(Bloomberg) — A Goldman Sachs Group Inc. compliance employee hired to develop surveillance software to detect illegal behavior, including insider trading, settled an SEC lawsuit that accused him of helping himself to confidential data and trading on it.
Yeu Han, a Chinese citizen also known as John Han, agreed to pay more than $903,000 to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, money which he earned on the trades, under an accord approved Wednesday by a U.S. judge in Manhattan.
Han worked in Goldman Sachss compliance division developing surveillance models to identify potential risk behavior, including market manipulation and insider trading, according to the SECs complaint. He had access to e-mails of Goldman Sachs employees who worked on confidential mergers and acquisition transactions, according to the agency.
Han knew the information was nonpublic and confidential and that he had to disclose his brokerage accounts and get advance clearance from a supervisor for any trading, the SEC said. Beginning in December 2014, in violation of company policy, he began trading in securities of four companies: Yodlee Inc.; Zulily Inc.; Rentrak Corp. and KLA-Tencor Corp., shortly before each publicly announced merger and acquisition transactions, the SEC alleged.
He made more than $468,000 using his personal trading account and more than $434,000 through a relatives account, according to the SEC.
Han left the U.S. for Shanghai last October, the SEC said. Han, who represented himself in the legal proceedings, didnt immediately return an e-mail sent to him seeking comment about the accord.
The case is SEC v. Han, 15-cv-09260, U.S District Court, Southern District of New York (Manhattan).
