The US Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Washington said on Friday that a former Netflix engineer was sentenced to two years in prison and a $15,000 fine for his involvement in directing an insider trading ring based on proprietary knowledge regarding the streaming giant’s subscriber growth.
Sung Mo Jun, a former engineer, pled guilty to securities fraud in August. Jun apologised to the court for his behaviour during his punishment. According to the US Attorney’s Office, Jun remarked, “What I did was foolish, wrong, and criminal.” “I’m not making any excuses.” Many individuals were disappointed by me.”
Jun was sentenced to prison along with one of his co-conspirators, Junwoo Chon, who received a 14-month sentence and a $10,000 fine.
According to a plea agreement filed in August, Jun worked as a software engineer for Netflix from July 2016 to February 2017 and used insider information about the company’s subscriber growth to warn Chon and Jun’s brother, Joon Mo Jun, when they bought and sold Netflix stock.
Jun continued to obtain insider information from another Netflix software developer, Ayden Lee, to inform the company’s stock trading after he left Netflix. Next year, Lee and Jun’s brother are scheduled to be jailed.
Sung Mo Jun, 49, was also fined $15,000 for being the leader of an insider trading ring that made more than $3 million off of information regarding Netflix’s subscriber growth.
In addition to their sentences, Jun and Chon will each forfeit $495,188 and $1,582,885 to the US, respectively, for the profit they made using insider knowledge. Jun and Chon will be forced to conduct 50 hours of community service after serving their sentences.