By Janet H. Cho

Prudential Financial Inc. stock is falling on Tuesday after a report about potential employee misconduct at Japan-based Gibraltar Life Insurance.

Japan's Nikkei.com news site reported Tuesday that "dozens of cases of suspected financial fraud by former employees of Gibraltar Life Insurance, a subsidiary of the Prudential Group have surfaced."

To "prevent recurrence," Prudential Life Insurance is considering extending the period during which it will suspend new contracts, which was set to end on May 9, by about six months, the report said, in an English language translation.

The report also said "Prudential Holdings Japan, the parent company, will make an announcement soon" as external experts investigate the extent of the damage.

Prudential Financial could not immediately be reached.

Shares of Prudential Financial were down 6% on Tuesday.

The Asahi Shimbun newspaper has reported that 107 current and former Prudential Life Insurance employees "obtained money through fraudulent means or failed to repay funds they had borrowed from roughly 500 customers," amounting to an estimated 3.14 billion yen ($20 million) between 1991 and 2025, citing the company's internal investigation released on Jan. 16.

A separate investigation found that "69 employees violated internal rules by taking kickbacks for referring customers to outside investment firms," The Asahi Shimbun reported.

In early February, Prudential announced a voluntary 90-day suspension of new sales activity to support Prudential of Japan's implementation of comprehensive operational, organizational, and governance changes to address the previously disclosed incidents of misconduct by employees.

On April 9, the newspaper said that Japan's Financial Services Agency was expanding its investigation and conducting an on-site inspection of the parent company of Prudential Life Insurance Co. and examining whether "an excessive performance-driven culture that fostered misconduct and lax oversight of sales employees" contributed to what happened.

Prudential shares had traded as low as $95.74 on Tuesday afternoon, down 6.7% and on pace for its largest percentage decrease since April 4, 2025, when shares fell 7.9%, according to Dow Jones Market Data.

Shares closed down 6% at $96.45 on Tuesday. Prudential's stock is down 14.6% this year and down 3.8% over the past 12 months.

Write to Janet H. Cho at janet.cho@dowjones.com

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April 21, 2026 16:43 ET (20:43 GMT)

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