Former Nomura Securities Co. President Hideo Sakamaki was handed a suspended one-year prison term Wednesday for conspiring to pay 370 million yen to "sokaiya" corporate extortionist Ryuichi Koike, the center of one of the biggest financial scandals to rock the nation this decade.
The Tokyo District Court ruled that Sakamaki, 63, violated the Commercial Code and the Securities and Exchange Law by giving the illegal payoffs to Koike, 55, who is being tried separately in the case.
Former Nomura executive Nobutaka Fujikura, 56, was also sentenced to a one-year term and colleague Shinpei Matsuki, 54, was handed an eight-month sentence. Like Sakamaki, both sentences were suspended for three years.