Investors who collectively placed approximately 100,000 failed share trades may seek compensation after a systems glitch at the Tokyo Stock Exchange last week left some 40 brokerages temporarily unable to place orders, sources said Thursday.

The TSE and the securities firms are at odds over what triggered the connection failure on Oct. 9, and a resolution to the compensation issue may not be concluded quickly, the sources said. The bourse detected the problem at around 7:30 a.m. in one of four lines used to accept orders from brokerages, after it received an unusually large amount of data via Merrill Lynch Japan Securities during a routine check of the system, according to the sources. The TSE told securities firms about 30 minutes later that it would open the market using the remaining three lines, but about 40 brokerages out of 90 were unable to switch their connections in time, leaving them without the means to execute clients’ trade orders.

The number of transactions eligible for compensation at five major brokerages is expected to reach 70,000 to 80,000, and the total figure at the 40 securities houses is likely to hit 100,000, or 1 percent of the overall orders executed that day, the sources said.