Nomura to pay 82 million yen to former electronic trading employee in settlement

Reports from Takahiko Hyuga of Bloomberg has unveiled that Japanese banking giant Nomura Co Ltd (TYO:9716) has settled an employment case with a former managing director in Tokyo, agreeing to pay him ¥82 million yen ($688,000 USD) in compensation without reinstating him, according to a Tokyo High Court document.

The former Nomura MD, Seth Friedman joined Nomura in May 2008 and worked in electronic trading, and was originally fired for breaching company rules that prohibiting employees from sending data files to their private e-mail accounts, the district court document showed.

However, Mr. Friedman argued that Nomura fired him following a dispute over compensation for an electronic trading product that he invented while he was employed by the brokerage, according to the district court document.

As part of the settlement, Nomura retracted its dismissal of Mr. Friedman while the parties agreed that his employment contract ended on May 23, 2012, according to the December 24th document as seen by Bloomberg.

The settlement came after the firm’s Japanese brokerage unit appealed in September against a lower court ruling that it must reinstate Friedman for wrongful dismissal in 2012.

The Tokyo District Court earlier ordered Nomura Securities Co. (the securities and investment banking business of Nomura Holdings) to honor its employment agreement with Friedman and pay him more than ¥100 million yen in lost salary plus interest, according to an August 28th judgment seen by Bloomberg. Nomura had no reasonable grounds for dismissing him, the lower court ruled.

The parties agreed not to make any further complaints against each other, the high court document showed. Kenji Yamashita, a Tokyo-based spokesman for Nomura, declined to comment. Friedman also declined to comment.

Click here to see the original report from Bloomberg.

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