An employee of Deutsche Bank AG¡¯s Japanese brokerage unit was arrested Thursday on suspicion of bribery as the securities watchdog recommended penalties against the firm for excessive entertainment spending.

Shigeru Echigo, a director of Deutsche Securities Inc.¡¯s pension solution sales department, is suspected of entertaining a client at a Mitsui & Co. unit in exchange for purchases of investment products, a Tokyo police official said. A former Mitsui pension executive was also detained, the official said.

The unit of Germany¡¯s biggest bank broke Japanese rules by providing special benefits to three pensions, the Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission said in a statement, without naming the funds. The firm spent a total of ?6.3 million entertaining the clients on about 100 occasions from 2010 to 2012, the SESC said.