SEC v. Ieremenko et al.: settlements with Kwon and Sabodakha (hack to trade, 2020)

Settled

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In April 2020 the SEC announced settlements, subject to court approval, with traders David Kwon and Igor Sabodakha, defendants in its case over trading on earnings data hacked from the SEC's EDGAR system. Combined, they agreed to $314,278 of disgorgement and $37,199 of interest, and Sabodakha to a $148,804 penalty; Kwon's penalty is reserved for the court. The SEC will move to dismiss its charges against Sabodakha's wife, Victoria Vorochek.

The record

What was ordered

Civil penalty

$149k

Disgorgement

$314k

Prejudgment interest

$37.2k

Total relief

$500k

Alleged gain

—

A dash means the release did not state a figure we could extract, not that the figure is zero. Penalty and disgorgement are stored separately so aggregates across the library do not double-count the same dollars.

What is alleged to have happened

The Securities and Exchange Commission announced these settlements on April 9, 2020 as litigation release LR-24793, in SEC v. Ieremenko et al., civil action 19-cv-00505 in the District of New Jersey, filed January 15, 2019. The release concerns two of the nine defendants, David Kwon of California and Igor Sabodakha of Ukraine (2 individuals, 0 entities). The settlements were subject to court approval.

The SEC's complaint alleges that a Ukrainian hacker extracted EDGAR files containing nonpublic earnings results and passed them to traders, and that Kwon and Sabodakha traded in the narrow window before the companies announced. Sabodakha is also alleged to have traded earlier on information hacked from at least two newswire services. Without admitting or denying the allegations, each consented to an injunction under Section 10(b), Rule 10b-5 and Securities Act Section 17(a).

Kwon agreed to disgorge $165,474 and pay $16,254 of interest, with any penalty reserved for the court. Sabodakha agreed to disgorge $148,804, including trades in his wife Victoria Vorochek's account, pay $20,945 of interest and a $148,804 penalty. The record stores the combined disgorgement and interest and Sabodakha's penalty. An earlier version also tagged the matter as insider trading and as having a parallel criminal case; the release charges trading on hacked information and thanks the U.S. Attorney's Office for assistance without describing a criminal case.

For the regulator's own account of the facts, read the primary document linked above.

What technique is this, and how does it work?

This action is tagged with one technique in our taxonomy. The tagging is ours: regulators charge statutory provisions, not technique names, so the mapping is an editorial judgement described in our editorial policy.

• Hack to trade — see how it works, what statute it engages, and every other action tagged the same way.

Timeline

1. 2020-04-09 Litigation release published

Primary documents

Everything on this page derives from the documents below. Where our summary and the primary document disagree, the primary document is right.

• SEC litigation release

The linked release is a work of the United States government and is not subject to copyright. Our summary and narrative above are our own writing.

Same matter

The library links these 3 records because they appear to concern one matter: the same lead defendant, an overlapping technique tag and close filing dates, or a shared court docket or a release that cites the other. Records are listed by date filed.

This grouping is the library's, made by matching names, techniques, dates and citations when the site is built. It is not the regulator's or a court's determination that the records are one case, and it errs towards missing a link rather than making a false one.

Related actions

Other actions in the library sharing at least one technique tag with this one.

Record added September 20, 2026. submit a correction.