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Morning Report: With Lawsuits Piling Up, Equifax Shows Little Signs Of Recovery

Morning Report: Equifax sheds 21% of its market cap since it disclosed the hack.

Last Thursday, terrible news came for 143 million people Equifax kept a file on. Private data, including Social Security numbers, names, addresses, and driver license numbers, were breached.

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The hack was discovered on July 29. A month later, the company still does not have reliable solutions in place. In addition, three Equifax executives are also under media crossfire for suspicious trade timing that some are saying could constitute as insider trading.

Unsurprisingly, Equifax’s stock started to plummet the day the news broke. TechCrunch’s Katie Roof tracked that shares fell by 14 percent last Friday, the first day of trading after the hack was disclosed, and by another 8 percent this Monday.

I checked back this morning to see how Equifax is doing on the stock market. Though shares have not experienced a huge decline in the past two days compared to the dip last week, they don’t show signs of recovery either.

The following chart shows Equifax’s share price since the middle of last week:

Equifax’s share price could decline further under the weight of a rising legal load. By Sunday, at least 25 lawsuits have been filed in federal courts, according to Reuters. A chatbot was also created to help those who cannot afford to hire a lawyer sue Equifax for up to $25,000.

Though leaked information cannot be retrieved, the Equifax hack served as a wake-up call for the credit industry to enhance security measures and protect its consumers.

If you are impacted by the hack and simultaneously hold Equifax shares, fingers crossed that you will be able to make up for your losses somehow—either on the stock market or in court.

From The Crunchbase Daily:

Zoox eyes big new round

  • Autonomous vehicle startup Zoox is in talks with SoftBank about a new funding round that could value the secretive Silicon Valley company at between $3 billion and $4 billion, according to media reports. Zoox has previously raised about $290 million at a reported last valuation of over $1.5 billion.

Social Finance CEO steps down

  • Mike Cagney will step down as CEO of Social Finance, the online lending company he co-founded, following charges of sexual harassment. His exit is the latest in a string of high-profile departures by Silicon Valley executives and venture partners faced with misconduct allegations.

Europe startup exits tick up

  • Looking at exit volumes, it appears the European startup scene has shown growth over the past year, according to a Crunchbase News report based on a recent study of cross-border transactions. Much of the activity is cross-border, with U.S.-based companies responsible for more than a third of European startup acquisitions.

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