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Bulletins

Former Netflix engineer will face prison over insider trading

Former engineer Sung Mo Jun plead guilty in August.

Netflix building in Los Angeles, CA

A former Netflix employee made $3 million from insider trading

Photo: Cameron Venti/Unsplash

A former software engineer for Netflix was sentenced to two years in prison for taking part in an insider trading ring that generated more than $3 million, the U.S. Attorney’s Office in the Western District of Washington announced Friday.

Former engineer Sung Mo Jun worked for Netflix between July 2016 and February 2017, using insider information about subscriber growth to tip off his co-conspirator, Junwoo Chon, and his brother, Joon Jun, when to buy stock. After leaving the streaming company, he obtained more insider information about Netflix subscriber data from software engineer Ayden Lee. Jun and Chon were tried in the U.S. District Court in Seattle.

At his hearing in August where he plead guilty, Jun told the court, “What I did was foolish, wrong, illegal…. I have no excuse. I disappointed many people.”

Along with Jun's prison time, he received a $15,000 fine. Chon was sentenced to 14 months in prison with a fine of $10,000. Following their sentences, both men will have a year of supervised release and must complete 50 hours of community service.

Jun will forfeit nearly $500,000 and Chon is to give up close to $1.6 million to the U.S. Joon Jun and Lee will be tried next year, with their illicit profits totaling $1.1 million and $453,000, respectively.

Nat Rubio-Licht

Nat Rubio-Licht is a Los Angeles-based news writer at Protocol. They graduated from Syracuse University with a degree in newspaper and online journalism in May 2020. Prior to joining the team, they worked at the Los Angeles Business Journal as a technology and aerospace reporter.

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