SBS staff probed for Insider trade

[Anchor]

Some employees of SBS are under investigation for allegedly trading stocks based on undisclosed information about an official collaboration between SBS and Netflix, profiting significantly.

The Financial Services Commission conducted a search and seizure at the SBS office today (July 15).

Reporter Song Su-jin has the details.

[Report]

On December 20 last year, SBS officially announced its partnership with Netflix.

The partnership involves supplying dramas and entertainment content to Netflix, the world's largest OTT platform, for six years.

Although the transaction amount was not disclosed, it was analyzed that SBS would generate additional profits in the hundreds of billions of won.

The stock market also viewed this as good news.

SBS's stock price, listed on the KOSPI, hit the upper limit for two consecutive trading days on the day of the announcement and the following day.

The Financial Services Commission has identified that an employee, referred to as A, allegedly knew this information in advance and traded a large amount of the company's stocks.

The Commission believes that A made several hundred million won in capital gains and conducted a search of the SBS office where A worked today.

Following the start of the investigation by the Financial Services Commission, SBS has dismissed employee A.

SBS stated, "It has been determined that the employee profited from trading SBS stocks in large quantities based on 'undisclosed information' obtained during their duties," and added, "We will actively cooperate with the Financial Services Commission's investigation and strive to prevent similar cases from recurring."

The Financial Services Commission is expanding its investigation, believing that there may be more individuals involved beyond employee A.

They are conducting a detailed analysis of the timing of information acquisition and stock trading activities for each employee involved in the partnership discussions.

The financial authorities have been expanding their investigation into allegations of insider trading based on corporate internal information learned by numerous current and former reporters since the beginning of this year, and it has been reported that the allegations related to SBS were also identified during this process.

This is KBS News, Song Su-jin.