Nomura Holdings, Japan's largest brokerage, CEO Kentaro Okuda publicly apologized on Wednesday after a company employee was accused of manipulating the bond futures market.

At a financial forum in Tokyo, Kentaro Okuda said, 'I would like to apologize for the trouble caused by the recent suggestions received by Nomura Securities from the Securities Exchange Surveillance Commission.'

Last week, the investigation department of the Securities Exchange Surveillance Commission of Japan requested a fine to be imposed on Nomura's domestic securities department, as the department was suspected of manipulating Japanese government bond futures prices in 2021. Subsequently, Toyota Financial Corporation and several other companies excluded this largest Japanese brokerage from transactions for underwriting their debts.

The Securities Exchange Surveillance Commission of Japan recommended that the Japanese Financial Services Agency impose a fine of 21.8 million yen (approximately 0.152 million US dollars) on Nomura Securities for its violations. The Japanese Financial Services Agency usually enforces such penalties a few weeks later.

Nomura stated last week that since the problematic transactions occurred, the company has been working to amend its Japanese government bond futures trading business, and has pledged to continue improving its internal controls to prevent such incidents from happening again.

In recent years, Citigroup and securities companies under Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group have also been penalized for manipulating Japanese government bond futures prices.