A Tokyo judge on Wednesday handed a former Deutsche Bank salesman a suspended prison sentence for bribing a pension fund official with dinners and golf outings, and said more senior officials at the bank had “tacitly condoned” the practice.

Akira Ando, the judge overseeing the case at the Tokyo District Court, gave Shigeru Echigo, who worked at the Japanese investment arm of Deutsche Bank, a 10-month prison sentence, suspended for three years.

The judge also said there was evidence that senior managers at Deutsche Securities knew their staff were entertaining pension fund officials to gain business, but said there was no proof that Echigo had been given explicit instructions to bribe the official at the centre of this case.

“It is impossible to state definitively that this was a company-wide problem,” judge Ando added.

Deutsche Securities spokesman Takayuki Inoue has declined to comment on the case.

The 37-year-old former salesman…

(Reuters) – JPMorgan Chase & Co, (JPM.N) the second-largest U.S. mortgage lender, is backing away from making home loans to less creditworthy borrowers after losing faith in its ability to recover much money from foreclosing on homes, even with government guarantees.

The shift reflects a change in the way the bank views its mortgage business: where before it viewed collateral and U.S. government lending programs as key backstops to most loans it was making, now it is determined to never have to foreclose.

To avoid loans that default, it is doing more work on establishing the capacity and willingness of borrowers to pay their loans. The bank is losing market share in government-backed loans, but is doing so consciously, JPMorgan executives told analysts Tuesday on a conference call.

“We maintained discipline regarding pricing to our required returns,” Chief Financial Officer Marianne Lake said.

Lenders have broadly been paying…