(Reuters) -A Tokyo Stock Exchange employee is under investigation by the country’s financial watchdog for suspected insider trading, its parent company Japan Exchange Group (JPX) said on Wednesday.
The Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission is investigating the employee, and JPX will fully cooperate with the probe, the company said in a statement.
“We would like to offer our sincere apologies for the inconvenience and concern this will cause among our listed companies and other related parties,” JPX said.
The employee allegedly bought and sold stocks based on undisclosed corporate information, and the investigation began around September, according to the Nikkei newspaper, which first reported the news earlier on Wednesday.
Broadcaster TBS reported, citing a source, that the employee, a man in his 20s, was suspected of providing information on listed companies’ tender offers multiple times this year to a relative of his.
TBS said the relative used the information to make at least several hundreds of thousands of yen worth of profit from equity trading.
Neither the employee or the company stocks allegedly traded were identified by JPX or in the media reports.
The spokesperson for the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission could not be reached immediately for comment. A JPX spokesperson told Reuters the company had no further comment to make at present beyond its statement.
Insider trading violates Japan’s Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. Offenders face up to five years in prison, a fine of up to 5 million yen ($33,097), or both.
($1 = 151.0700 yen)
(Reporting by Sneha Kumar and Kantaro Komiya; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Shri Navaratnam)
