A special commission set up by Equifax’s committee to review the trades assumed that no insider dealing took place and that pre-approval for the trades was properly obtained.
The company’s shares moved up 0.2 percent at $109.10 on Friday at midday, about 24 percent lower than on Sept. 7 when Equifax revealed that cybercriminals had breached its Servers and accessed sensitive data on 145.5 million consumers.
The shares collapsed as much as 37 percent in the days after the declaration.
Atlanta-based Equifax had been conscious of the breach since July 29, days before some of its senior officials, including its chief commercial officer, sold $1.8 million in shares.
After an examination that included 62 interviews and a discussion of over 55,000 documents, including emails, text communications, phone logs, and other records, Equifax said the officials had no knowledge of the break when they sold the stock.
“The conclusion that the Organization executives in question traded properly is an extremely important finding and very reassuring,” non-executive Chairman Mark Fiedler said in a description.
Former Equifax Chief Executive Officer Richard Smith, who moved down in September and agreed to forgo his yearly bonus, told lawmakers last month that the officials would not have known of the breach because suspicious incidents are discovered every day at the firm and take days or weeks to confirm.
The U.S. Justice Department is leading its own criminal inquiry into the share sales.
The hack, among the largest, ever recorded, exposed data that included aliases, birthdays, addresses and Social Security and driver’s license numbers.
It has also provoked investigations by multiple federal and state offices as well as scores of class action lawsuits.
The exact economic toll on Equifax is still unknown, and as of early Friday, the business said it still had not set a date to publish its third quarter financial results. If the organization does not release the results by Nov. 9, it will have to seek an increase from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which gives large businesses 40 days after the close of a section to report their financials to investors.
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