Prudential Financial’s life insurance division in Japan announced Friday that several of its workers stationed at partner agencies illegally accessed and removed confidential business data, then distributed it to colleagues within the company.
According to the firm’s disclosure, eleven staff members extracted operational data during 379 separate incidents across seven different agencies. The stolen information was then passed along to other Prudential personnel, who utilized it to develop sales marketing tactics.
The compromised data included details about agency sales performance and other internal business operations, the company revealed.
This latest scandal emerges just weeks after the head of Prudential’s Japanese life insurance division stepped down in February, amid a separate misconduct investigation involving approximately 100 workers and roughly 3.1 billion yen in damages.
“Both the seconded employees who removed the information and the employees who received it lacked a fundamental understanding of the rules and failed to perform basic compliance actions,” Prudential Gibraltar Financial Life Insurance said in a statement.
The insurance company announced it will terminate all life insurance employee assignments to outside agencies by March’s end. Additionally, several current and former company leaders have agreed to voluntarily forfeit portions of their salaries.
“After confirming the content of all cases with the agencies, no issues were identified that would raise concerns under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act, nor was there any inappropriate removal of contract information,” it added.
Trading activity showed Prudential’s parent company stock dropping 3.4% during Friday morning sessions.
