Sumitomo Scandal May Be Broader

Two commodities brokers who dealt with the central figure in the Sumitomo Corp. copper scandal, Yasuo Hamanaka, say senior Sumitomo officials approved some of Hamanaka’s biggest copper trades, according to a published report Friday.

The brokers’ statements raise questions about whether Hamanaka indeed acted without management’s knowledge in racking up a $1.8 billion loss in copper trading over a 10-year period.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Ashley Levett and Charles Vincent, co-founders of Winchester, England-based Winchester Commodities Group, said in an interview that Akio Imamura, Hamanaka’s boss, approved what was believed to be Hamanaka’s largest single purchase of copper. The 1993 deal, code-named Radr, may have been worth more than $2.8 billion, the newspaper said.