A Tokyo court has found a former judge guilty of insider trading, in a verdict that comes amid a spate of bank and stock market scandals.
The Tokyo District Court punished Soichiro Sato with a two-year suspended sentence on Wednesday for making advance stock trades on the basis of inside information he gained while at the Financial Services Agency last January, the court’s press officer stated.
Sato, 32, was working in the department responsible for screening and granting documents on tender offers at the time, according to Kyodo News.
The decision comes after a series of financial sector scandals have hit the country. On Monday, prosecutors were asked to indict a former Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank executive in charge of insider trading. Last month, the securities regulator filed a complaint with prosecutors against a former Tokyo Stock Exchange employee and his father on suspected insider trading.
In Wednesday’s case, Sato used information gained while at the FSA to buy shares in companies like Mimasu Semiconductor Industry Co., whose stock price later rose on news of a tender offer by Shin-Etsu Chemical Co., under a December complaint lodged by the SESC. Sato was fined 1 million yen ($6,600) for unlawful trading and ordered to relinquish about 10.2 million yen in profits from the unlawful dealings, the spokeswoman said.
