Company Ex-Exec Arrested for Recommending Stock Sale on Inside Info

Tokyo, May 18 (Jiji Press)--Japanese public prosecutors on Thursday arrested a former executive of a Tokyo-based investor relations support company for allegedly advising acquaintances to sell shares in the corporation ahead of the release of an earnings warning.

The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's special squad has not disclosed whether Takuji Kurio, former vice president of IR Japan Holdings Ltd., has admitted to the suspected violation of the financial instruments and exchange law.

According to the allegations, Kurio, 56, learned that IR Japan was planning to revise down its consolidated sales forecast for the fiscal year through March 2021 and told two acquaintances multiple times the following month to sell off their holdings of shares in the company so that they would not incur losses.

The two sold a total of about 11,000 IR Japan shares for about 180 million yen before the announcement of the downward revision.

The company said on April 16 that year that it had revised down the sales forecast from 9.7 billion yen to 8.28 billion yen. Following the announcement, its share price on the Tokyo Stock Exchange fell below 14,000 from levels above 16,000 yen.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]