In Replay Of Wall Street Crisis, Equifax CEO Walks Away With Millions
My print version of the New York Times has a headline today that would be funny if it weren’t so painful for over 140 million Americans. The headline reads, “Replacing Its C.E.O., Equifax Tries To Turn Page”. It’s nice to see how easily Equifax thinks it can turn the page. If only that were true for the millions of Americans who have had to navigate freezing their credit reports and face the possibility of identity theft for years to come.
The Equifax CEO, Richard Smith, has been pushed into voluntary retirement, and he agreed to forgo his 2017 bonus. Poor guy. Of course, he will still be retiring with over $18 million in pension benefits. He will still hold over $23 million in Equifax stock. He will still keep the proceeds of the $19 million in stock he dumped earlier this year, perhaps with knowledge of the security breach. He will still receive his prorated salary for 2017 of $1 million. In addition, he still retains a variety of stock options that will vest over the next few years which could total another $90 million.
Equifax has reserved the right to retroactively fire Smith for cause which would cause him to lose large portions of his retirement package, Even so, Smith will not be suffering. And Equifax, of course, is desperately hoping that Smith will be able to quietly go into the night. The reality is that Equifax should get the death penalty as it has failed in the only job it really had which was protecting our confidential data. But it won’t because it’s too big already, providing credit scores in 19 countries, and because shutting it down would just increase the oligopoly power of Experian and TransUnion.
Equifax and the other credit agencies take our information without asking, make unilateral decisions about our financial health, sell that information, and then charge us to see our information that they sold. Donald Trump is railing about people taking a knee during the national anthem in protest of minorities getting essentially murdered by police, and corporate criminals like Smith walk away scot free. For the elites, especially white elites, there is never any accountability. We are truly screwed.
