Sonic the Hedgehog co-creator and former head of Sonic Team Yuji Naka joins two other former Square Enix employees who were arrested for trafficking private Dragon Quest information and trading stock before the game was announced. Read more here!
Yes, just as they read. they arrested Yuji Naka, the co-creator of sonic the hedgehog and former head of sonic team, for insider trading in Tokyo under the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. They reportedly arrested Naka for using private information from game development Dragon Quest to buy shares. All this while he works on Square Enix.
The arrest, announced by the Japanese site FNN, was done by the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office. According to the special investigation unit, Yuji Naka would have bought developer shares aiming in January 2020, while I was still an employee of Square Enix and had private information about the upcoming release. At that time, the company and aiming they were developing the mobile game Dragon Quest Tact, but the association between companies was only going to be announced in February 2020, while the game would arrive in July of that year.
Before aiming announced its participation in the project Dragon Quest, Naka he would have bought 10,000 shares of the company for about 2.8 million yen (approx. 20,000 dollars). The assumption is that the co-creator of sonic the hedgehog expected to benefit from a rise in stock price after the game’s announcement and launch. However, it is not yet clear if he actually sold those shares.
The arrest of Naka arrived a day after that of two other former employees of Square Enix for the same charges. The researchers say that Taisuke Sazaki Y fumiaki suzuki bought some 162 thousand shares of aiming for 47.2 million yen (336 thousand dollars approx) between the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020. Supposedly, sazaki found out about the existence of Dragon Quest Touch and bought the shares at the beginning of December 2019. At the end of the same month, he informed suzuki for him to do the same.
According to the site Asahi Shimbun, sazaki was a member of the joint development team working on Dragon Quest Touch. Following the purchase of the shares, both former employees sold their shares of aiming after the company announced the joint development project with Square Enix and took several tens of millions of yen in profit.
When the arrests of sazaki and suzuki, Square Enix confirmed in a statement issued to VGC that both were former employees of the company and that they were working with authorities in the investigation.
“Some media reported that former employees of Square Enix were under investigation for suspected insider trading”, the statement began. “We have been fully cooperating with requests from the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission. Since the investigation by the Tokyo District Prosecutor’s Office is ongoing, we will continue to fully cooperate with the investigation.”.
Furthermore, they added:We are deeply sorry for the great concern this has caused everyone involved. We have dealt with this incident strictly, including the internal disciplinary measures taken against the suspected employees.”.
The company also claimed that it had taken steps to prevent a similar situation from happening again: “We have established the appropriate confidential information management system and we have also put in place a system to prevent the use of privileged information, such as the obligation of prior notification in the trading of shares of the Company and the prohibition of trading in shares of the Company and listed companies that have a relationship with the Company before material non-public information is disclosed”.