Ideas in this flowchart

• Whether trading before impending bad news constitutes insider trading
• Impending bad news could cause the stock price to plummet
• A sharp price decline is a potential consequence of the news becoming public
• The issue concerns Equifax stock sales before a data-breach disclosure
• Equifax executives and managers sold stock before the hack was publicly revealed
• Equifax stock sales became the focus of a U.S. criminal investigation
• The central legal question is whether these transactions constitute insider trading
• The issue is documented by multiple news reports
• Verne Kopytoff, “Equifax Board Reviews Executive Stock Sales after Data Breach,” Fortune, September 29, 2017
• Jen Wieczner, “Equifax CEO Richard Smith Who Oversaw Breach to Collect $90 Million,” Fortune, September 26, 2017
• Tom Schoenberg, Anders Melin, and Matt Robinson, “Equifax Stock Sales Are the Focus of U.S. Criminal Probe,” Bloomberg Markets, September 18, 2017
• Liz Moyer, “Suspect Trading in Equifax Options before Breach Might Have Generated Millions in Profit,” CNBC, September 8, 2017
• Alina Selyukh, “3 Equifax Executives Sold Stock Days after Hack That Wasn’t Disclosed for a Month,” NPR, September 8, 2017
• Anders Melin, “Three Equifax Managers Sold Stock Before Cyber Hack Revealed,” Bloomberg News, September 7, 2017