Samsung Securities gave staff 2.8 billion shares by mistake. Sixteen sold some.

On Friday 6 April 2018, at about 9:30 in Seoul, the broker was paying its employee shareholders a cash dividend of 1,000 won a share. An employee entered 1,000 shares per share instead. Korea's Financial Services Commission counted 2.81 billion shares credited to 2,018 employees. The company had issued about 890 million shares.

The first sale came at 9:35. According to the Financial Supervisory Service, staff were told at 9:39, and a selling ban went out at 9:45. Between 9:35 and 10:06, 22 employees placed orders for 12.08 million shares, and 16 of them sold 5.01 million. The stock fell as much as 11.7%.

In July the regulator suspended CEO Koo Sung-hoon for three months. He resigned the next day. Samsung Securities was barred from taking new equity-brokerage clients for six months and fined 144 million won. In 2022 Korea's Supreme Court upheld the convictions of eight employees. None of them withdrew a profit because a sale pays out only after three trading days.

One-minute true story. AI-generated illustration with narration by an AI voice.

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