Japan regulator orders brokerage to halt block trading

its pretty common practice that SMBC is just one of many who carry it out

max prison and fine please.

On conviction, violations of the Financial Instrument and Exchange Act carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, a 10 million yen ($82,000) fine, or both. A company faces a fine of up to 700 million ($5.8 million).

Paltry fines and no chance that anyone involved in these kind of crimes will ever get prison time. There are so many loopholes in Japanese regulation of capitalist enterprises and anyway it's all mostly carefully kept away from the justice system with special administrative measures dished out by ministries. This usually ends up with some suitably cowed-looking company representative handing over a bunch of papers and bowing to a stern-looking bureaucrat in front of cameras. And that's the end of it.

I have always thought that SMBC group is very suspicious every since they wanted to charge me $50.00 to cash my stimulus check and wanted me to first open an account with them and keep the amount of $2,000 minimum balance in the account or pay a $20.00 monthly service fee.

they were targeting Americans living in Japan who have NO access to U.S bank accounts after living in japan for a long time. This was as DIRTY as it gets.

The Sumi Tomo Trust Bank is still the only one willing to accept foreign checks.

Mark: Totally different reasons. Retail vs Corporate. You obviously have little understanding. @wallace is almost correct Smbc Trust Bank are the bank who freely accept foreign cheques. By the way, cheques are not common in Japan, it's an admin nightmare. Sumitomo Trust is a different entity entirely. SMBC and SMBC Nikko all different entities. It's not only Japanese banks that have been found up to this previously. The securities sides of foreign banks have been up to it also

.. Oh and Mark. There are plenty of banks here who will not impose those charges. You just chose the wrong bank to use who try to target high nett worth individuals.

Block trades have been in the spotlight for some time now.

This one pretty much sums it up as to why:

https://carpenterwellington.com/post/block-trades-archegos-capital-meltdown/

and, since February :

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/regulators-are-probing-block-trading-wall-st-what-is-block-2022-02-16/

https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/morgan-stanley-discloses-investigation-into-block-trading-business-2022-02-24/

I sometimes think the regulators take the fun out of the Markets, as they're no longer like they used to be, and money has become too tight to mention....