A day later, Trend Micro announced that the couple reached a settlement with the SEC. In February 2007, the SEC announced that it had filed a complaint to the District Court of Columbia, charging that Chiang, aided and abetted by Chen, engaged in illegal insider trading. At the time, Trend Micro was listed on both the Tokyo Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. The SEC was also investigating whether Chen underreported her holdings in Trend Micro shares. is an online Chinese media company listed on Nasdaq. shares in 2005 when he was serving as the co-chairman of the company. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) was investigating whether Chen's husband, Daniel Chiang, was in violation of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 trading in the securities of Sina Corp. In July 2006, Trend Micro issued a statement that the U.S. However, an old insider trading penalty involving her husband also cast a shadow over Chen.
Since becoming Trend Micro’s chief executive, she has shifted the company’s focus from traditional antivirus software to cloud computing protection, purchasing Canadian security software company Third Brigade in 2009 and cloud storage service Humyo in 2010, both for undisclosed prices. Nevertheless, Jack Plunkett, CEO of Plunkett Research of Houston, Texas, who follows Trend Micro, said it is rare that a chief executive doesn't hold a significant amount of shares in the company, since the board usually hopes stock ownership will induce top executives to act in the best interests of shareholders. “They merely manage the company as one of investors.” But he thought there were no specific reasons. Management’s “percentage held is low,” Tanaka said. But the Trend Micro spokesman did not answer why Eva Chen is not listed among the largest shareholders in the company, when it appears that she should be part of that list. Those shares are worth just under $48 million, based on the closing price from May 22. Trend Micro confirmed to Forbes on Wednesday that Eva Chen does own 1.689 million shares of the company. Chikai Tanaka, an analyst at Nomura Securities in Japan, said he obtained that figure from a meeting with Trend Micro. Only one analyst said Chen owns about 1.6 million shares, or 1.14%.
Most analysts interviewed on Monday said they didn’t know about Chen’s stake. BlackRock Asset Management Deutschland AG is the smallest of the shareholders listed, with a 0.05% stake. According to the company’s filings, Trueway ranks the highest on the list of Top 50 shareholders with a 14% stake.