The Japanese bank Nomura faces more legal problems.
On Friday, Nomura said it was likely involved in a new insider trading case, months after the firm's chief executive, Kenichi Watanabe, resigned following similar allegations.
Nomura has been engulfed in an insider trading investigation since the bank acknowledged this year that employees leaked information on at least three public offerings in 2010 to favored fund managers. The clients then profited from trading on the stocks ahead of the expected drop in the companies shares.
The latest case relates to activities by the hedge fund Japan Advisory, which is subject to a fine recommended by Japanese authorities.
Nomura said that Japan Advisory might have traded ahead of the public offering of the Japanese chipmaker Elpida last year. The hedge fund traded the stock for a profit after it realized that Nomura, which was underwriting the capital raising, had left the company off its research reports in the run-up to the sale.
“Our client was able to infer non-public, corporate-related information from documents provided by Nomura,†the Japanese bank said in a statement, adding that it continued to cooperate with authorities' investigations.
The latest acknowledgement of potential insider trading comes as Nomura pares back its global operations and tries to rebuild its business. The Japanese bank, which reported a small net profit of 2.8 billion yen, or $35 million, in the three months that ended Sept. 30, has announced a $1 billion cost reduction plan, including proposed layoffs in the firm's North American and European operations.
The strategic shift, implemented by Nomura's new chief executive, Koji Naga, represents a reversal of the bank's international ambitions. The bank had bought the Asian and European units of Lehman Brothers after its American rival collapsed.
Shares in Nomura rose 4.2 percent in Tokyo on Friday.
