Fuji Media Holdings Inc said Thursday it will pursue legal action against two former top officials of its television network subsidiary over a sexual misconduct scandal involving popular TV host Masahiro Nakai and a former female employee.
The decision to pursue litigation against former Fuji Television Network Inc President Koichi Minato and former Managing Director Toru Ota follows a third-party panel report that found the female announcer was subjected to sexual violence by Nakai in June 2023 "as an extension of her job."
The report, released this March, said that days later, she told doctors at work about the incident and was hospitalized for around two months until September 2023, during which she was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.
However, Minato and Ota, who reportedly dismissed the incident as "a man-woman problem," failed to share details with the company's compliance department or take appropriate action.
Also Thursday, Fuji TV announced disciplinary action against six officials over the incident, including a four-rank demotion for the former programming director who introduced the woman to Nakai.
The TV station has been mired in scandal over its handling of the case after a weekly magazine reported in December that Nakai engaged in nonconsensual sexual activity and paid an out-of-court settlement to the woman he met for dinner in June 2023.
Nakai, who rose to prominence as a member of the now-defunct pop group SMAP, retired from showbusiness over the scandal.
© KYODO
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virusrex
Very good steps on the right direction, still hoping that Nakai is also made fully responsible.
quercetum
At Fuji Media, accountability arrives not with urgency, but with the sluggish grace of a fax machine in a typhoon or a sloth on sedatives.
Not against the alleged perpetrator, mind you—Nakai has already paid his hush money and exited stage left—but against two former executives who treated a sexual assault allegation like a lovers’ quarrel at a karaoke bar.
What does that mean? Is he now in charge of watering the office plants?
Fountain
No criminal charges against this beast, Nakai?
shogun36
So the company that HIRED the criminals (and most likely were in cahoots with) are going to take action against them?
That's rich.