Nomura apologises for insider trading Nomura Holdings has apologised publicly for leaking information used for insider trading ahead of share issues in Tokyo, confirming for the first time the Japanese bank's role in a series of cases being examined by regulators. On Friday Japan's biggest brokerage expressed its "regret" that "non-public information was received from Nomura employees in such cases." Without naming the cases, the bank said it "sincerely apologise[d] for the trouble this has caused." The apology comes amid increased investigation of insider trading in the Tokyo market, triggered by widespread investor complaints that shares in companies preparing to issue new stock in 2010 regularly fell ahead of official announcements. Since March, the securities regulator has recommended fines of up to Y130,000 ($1,660) against the recipients of insider information, without identifying or punishing the leakers. Fines are calculated on the basis of the fees funds receive from trades. Under Japanese law, tipsters are immune from penalties if they do not themselves trade, although they could in theory be subject to criminal charges in serious cases. Nomura's statement came after the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission recommended a Y10m fine against First New York, a US-based fund manager, for trading on information provided by the underwriter on a share offering by Tokyo Electric Power Co in 2010. Nomura was the only underwriter on that offering. Nomura had previously been linked to insider-trading cases involving equity issues from Inpex, the oil and gas company, and Mizuho Financial Group, which had multiple underwriters. Yet Nomura never admitted direct involvement, choosing instead to express "regret" that information had been leaked. Separately on Friday, the insider trader at the heart of the Mizuho and Inpex cases - Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Holdings - published an account of the measures it is taking to prevent any recurrence. Nomura, which is running an internal investigation in parallel with a probe by the SESC, plans to report by the end of June on its improvement measures. This week Tadahiro Matsushita, the newly appointed financial services minister, pledged to deepen the investigation into insider trading, adding that he would like to increase staffing at the SESC, the investigative arm of the Financial Services Agency. Many participants in the Japanese equity market have expressed relief that, after years of ill-disguised abuses, regulators have started to take information leaks more seriously. "Japan needs clean capital markets if it is going to have any hope of getting out of the mess that it is in and to compete with the world," said one fund manager.