Equifax CEO Steps Down Amid Hacking Scandal (cnbc.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNBC: Richard Smith, CEO and chairman of Equifax, abruptly retired Tuesday following a data breach at the credit-reporting service that affected the personal information of 143 million people. Smith, who was 57 as of the company's proxy statement in March, became CEO and chairman in 2005 after 22 years at General Electric in senior roles in various divisions. He is to appear at a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee on Oct. 4 and is the only person scheduled to testify. He is also scheduled to testify next week at a hearing of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. Smith's salary for 2016 was $1.45 million and his bonus was $3.045 million. In a regulatory filing on Tuesday, the company said Smith will not get a bonus for this year and any other decisions regarding how his departure has been characterized or how much the company owes him will be deferred until the board completes an independent review of the breach and the response to it. In a separate report, CNBC notes that Smith could walk away with at least $18.4 million in pension benefits. The company is looking for a new CEO, naming its Asia-Pacific head to take on the interim CEO role.

Comments

Re: Knock, knock

[bestweasel]

Sorry about that, it was either the NSA in retaliation for the story about their spying or the Kremlin after the story about their dirty tricks or maybe those new technical folks we hired from Equifax aren't quite up to speed.

He should not be allowed to resign

[Alain Williams]

but made to stay there and face the music. As it is he will just run and become CEO of some other outfit that he will also fail to manage properly.

Re:Evading the Prosecutors

[geekmux]

(Equifax) - "Hello! Nice to meet you! I understand you're interested in buying our assets."

(Buyer) - "Yes, we are! We just have to get through some background stuff. How's your credit score?"

Lesson learned

[houghi]

You can screw over 143.000.000 people without any issue, but when you screw over a few people with insider trading info, you are going to jail.
Also see that asswipe that increased prices for medicine times 900. Steal from the poor, not an issue. Steal from the rich, we have laws against that.

But I guess that giving power and money to the 1% is the only alternative of not becoming a socialist, because that would be worse, right? (That was sarcasm)