Jasdaq Market Inc. President Nobuo Kurakazu said Thursday he will resign to take the blame for his unreported trading in shares of Yahoo Japan Corp. in 2002.
Kurakazu, chief of the company that runs the Jasdaq over-the-counter market for startup firms, conducted personal trading in Yahoo Japan shares worth a total 400 million yen on the market in 2002.
He said he will resign in late June, when the company holds a general shareholders' meeting.
In principle, Jasdaq Market bars employees from buying or selling shares on the bourse. Such trading is authorized only if a worker asks the firm for permission to conduct certain kinds of trading considered "reasonable."
Jasdaq Market said Kurakazu verbally informed the company of his trading in December 2002, when Yahoo Japan was still being traded on the Jasdaq.
The following year, the operator of the Internet portal site Yahoo Japan moved to the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
The Jasdaq Market official who received Kurakazu's request consulted the company's lawyer, who said such trading should be reported to the firm's board of directors.
But Kurakazu ignored this advice, reporting instead to the chairman of the Japan Securities Dealers Association, an industry body that oversees securities companies.
Kurakazu earlier told reporters that his trading was appropriate because it had received approval from the association's chairman.
He said he sold 320 Yahoo Japan shares, then bought them back for the same price to receive tax benefits introduced in 2003 for individual stock investors.