Nikko Securities President Masashi Kaneko confirmed during a Finance Ministry hearing Monday that his brokerage provided illegal profits to Shokei Arai, a Diet member who committed suicide last month hours before he was to be arrested.
But he asked administrators not to impose a heavy penalty, saying the payments should be considered part of an earlier scandal in which the major brokerage compensated a "sokaiya" corporate extortionist for stock-trading losses. The firm has already been punished in the case.
Kaneko was summoned along with other Nikko officials to explain the facts surrounding the scandal, in which Arai, of the Liberal Democratic Party, allegedly received trading profits from Nikko through a discretionary account in violation of the Securities and Exchange Law.