Yuji Naka, creator of Sonic The Hedgehog, was arrested for insider trading in November 2022. Yuji Naka, who pleaded guilty in March, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Yuji Naka, creator of Sonic The Hedgehog, was arrested for insider trading in November 2022. Yuji Naka, who pleaded guilty in March, was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.
Yuji Naka sentenced to prison
According to Denfanminicogamer.jp, Naka was also fined two times, Yen 2.5 million and Yen 170 million. However, the defense team is trying to reduce these numbers. In Naka’s case, before plans for games still in development were made public, he believed he had bought stock from two developers and could sell it when it was more valuable at a later date.
Naka joined Square Enix to develop the game Balan Wonderworld in 2018. Going a little further into 2022, it turns out that he and Dragon Quest 11 software executive Taisuke Sazaki invested in ATeam Entertainment before the development scores for the mobile spin-off Final Fantasy 7: The First Soldier were made public. For this reason, allegations that he gave inside information were put forward.
It is also among the allegations that Naka was aware of its existence before the game was announced and bought 10,000 shares of Aiming’s shares and 130,000 shares of Square shares. At the time of his arrest and indictment, Naka was not actively working at Square Enix. He left Square Enix in 2018 after his creation of Wonderworld underperformed critically and commercially. When charged in December of providing insider trading information, Square Enix announced that they could assist with the investigation.
Naka allegedly bought shares worth more than 100 million yen each, so he was fined 172 million yen, or around 1.2 million. At the hearing held in March 2023, Naka pleaded guilty to both trading accounts. The prosecution argued that it “gained unfair profits on investors and undermined the fairness of the market.”
Along with Naka, two other Square Enix employees, Fumiaki Suzuki and Taisuke Sasaki, were also arrested on insider trading charges. Square Enix issued the following statement at the time of Naka’s arrest:
“We regret the concern this has caused to everyone, We have addressed the incident thoroughly, including disciplinary measures for suspected employees.”