Kansai Electric admits execs' acceptance of gifts; president won't resign

Whoa. Now THAT is in your face corruption-without-accountability.

They staged with the media a dramatic arrest for Ghosn yet for Japanese executives of companies with direct ties with the government, the prosecutors of a corrupt justice system are totally silent. Nothing to see, move on. Just bow (= give the finger) in front of the Japanese populace, fixed.

How many of those employee going to be arrested so far? For Japan Inc all they need is bow. Everything is being forgiven.

yet if your gaijin CEO your thrown in indefinite detention on accusations alone, seriously the hypocrisy of justice in Japan is thicker than shite

Shigeki Iwane told a news conference that he wanted to stay in his position and regain the public's trust.

How many of those employee going to be arrested so far? For Japan Inc all they need is bow. Everything is being forgiven.

The president of Kansai Electric Power Co said he has no intention to resign after admitting last week that he and 19 company employees had received payments and gifts worth 320 million yen.

Gifts? I believe the word is, bribes. Or, you could use a more modern term like, grafts. That's a nice photo showing the 'get out of jail free' deep bow. What an absolute joke!

I always chuckle when I hear people gloat with pride about "samurai culture" and morality and see this kind of thing above all the time.

What a slap in the face. Japanese humbleness

to stay in his position and regain the public's trust. 

The dogs bark, the caravan moves on. Or fossils gonna fossil.

Shameful. I wonder why anyone wants to do business with Japan PLC.

Like this is any news. In Japan once again the mega rich do not go to jail, resign a position and just simply keep getting wealthier. Regain peoples trust, very doubtful and empty words that has no nothing to him or he would do the honorable gesture and resign. This is the way of the mega rich. Money works and talks well in Japan. A simple worker would have been fired and probably land in jail.

Brides are usually requested/expected. These gifts weren't requested.

requested or not and gifts should be refused by competent management, too easy to confuse gifts with bribes and this is the exact problem that Japan Inc continue to face today. Bribes and gifts make the tender process of companies corrupt, making prices for public works prices higher than they should be the end result is higher taxation and fewer social services. Its the average Taro that eventually suffers, just look at electricity prices in Japan theyre one of the highest in the world now.

 always chuckle when I hear people gloat with pride about "samurai culture" and morality and see this kind of thing above all the time.

Seeing things both in private sectors and public sectors in Japan that culture is gone from time to time. In the past minister or company execs will step down when they have only minor things. Now they don't even consider that move, the only move they consider only give a public bow that's it. Scandal like Olympus, Moritomo Gakuen and this one just prove that.

Of course foreign execs just can not do this without escaping the consequences.

Talk abt arrogant.

The president of Kansai Electric Power Co said he has no intention to resign 

Seeing execs from company that responsible for Fukushima crisis can walk away from their consequences, of course that will make other Japan Inc companies think, that they shouldn't give up over something this small.

They were only corrupt if they hide the gifts and spent the cash. They informed their board and returned the gifts.

> If they did try and hide the gifts then yes they are corrupt and should resign and even face criminal charges.

Non sense. Eiji Moriyama paid those executives to thank them for accepting to use the construction company Yoshida Kaihatsu. It was found that that Yoshida Kaihatsu had provided Moriyama with about ¥300 million as commission partly for its successful bid for nuclear plant-related engineering work. This is exactly what corruption is.

The only reason that those guys were caught is that someone who did not receive his share of money threw them on the rails.

Maybe I should steal something at a store and offer to return it when i get caught. Let's see if the judge will give me a get out of jail card if i told him i would do my best to regain society's trust because it seems to work with all these executives

That's the strange thing about Japan; you have all these high level scandals involving millions of dollars but very little street level crimes (when compared to other countries) such as muggings and vandalism.

When they received the money does not matter since they were definitely expecting to receive a compensation for accepting the conditions asked by Moriyama, that is to order the work from Yoshida Kaihatsu. It's exactly your type of loose interpretation of what is right or wrong so typical of Japanese that is allowing so much corruption in Japan.

If they informed their board about the gifts and didn't try to hide them and didn't spend a single yen and returned all the gifts then they shouldn't resign. 

Apologist non sense. Go to check the meaning of the word corruption and then come back.

For me, justice will be when these clowns are FIRED, not resigned, and sent to the nick for corruption charges. I feel sorrier for their families, especially the kids.

Saw the news conference on the TV this afternoon. The first problem is that although the nature and size of the 'gifts' surfaced within Kanden's company board meeting, the details of the scandal were not made public at the time. Today the Chairman made an attempt to come clean on the full details.

JT say they will be updating this article. There is a lot more to the story. President Iwane himself seems to have received very little in comparison to some of the others. One person tried over 19 times to give the gifts back to now-deceased Mayor Moriyama; still others say they were afraid for their lives. It seems that the Mayor was a very persuasive fellow. I guess the most sensible of them just put the gifts aside for the inevitable day of reckoning.

One can only imagine how many "gifts" are exchanged each and every day. How one wishes real investigate journalism existed in japan. The skeletons that would be unearthed would be globe shattering!!

Kansai Electric admits execs' acceptance of gifts; president won't resign

Then arrest them, hold them for 100 or so days, and of course, don't let them contact their wives.

Oops, I forgot. They are Japanese.

They would be brides if offered before the contract but were given after the contract so they were gifts.

Apparently you did not check the meaning of the word corruption yet. You really should because you are embarrassing yourself.

These types of stories happen frequently.

Oh my... I can't believe that you wrote this. So corruption is fine it it happens frequently? Seriously?

He must think he bowed low and long enough.

I'd love to see his plan to regain the public's trust!

Lots and lots of gifts to local media outlets, PR outlets, bureaucrats and politicians?

The circle remains unbroken.

he and 19 company employees had received payments and gifts worth 320 million yen.

Shigeki Iwane told a news conference that he wanted to stay in his position and regain the public's trust.

He can try regaining the public's trust by donating the 320 million yen to charity (eg, a fund to help Fukushima victims, etc). He and the 19 should also work without pay for some time.

Gifts lol! 'Hi, I was in the neighbourhood, and I thought I'd just pop round with this gift. It's a box...full of money. Have a great day'.

I wonder how profitable these executives have made Kansai Electric.

When they say "gifts" what do they exactly mean? cash? weekend away all expended paid in a luxury resort? posh Holliday for the whole family? free restaurants and booze? use of a private jet to go any where they want? IF they have received a "gift" should the tax department informed of this income? have they avoided not paying there share of tax? if they should have paid tax on said goods/income and they haven't, is that tax evasion? if so they should be arrested and charged as such.

The bows are quite impressive but still on the fence as to whether it gets them off the hook for a $3 million graft. Could be an optical illusion but pretty sure that front guy ain't pulling his weight. There will likely be hell to pay when he gets back to the office.

Anyway, great to hear that he won't resign and let someone honest take over the reins.

We just changed our supplier from Kansai Electric to Looop Denki. It was fairly easy to do. Not going to give anymore money to these criminals at least.

another guy apologize and refuse to resign its "GIFTS" which is no one know why he got them, i wonder if abe one of the guys who got some of that money ??

Over the past 50 years, all the power companies have given enormous donations to the LDP in return for the building of their nuclear power plants. The power companies are one of the most powerful group in the nation

So they do have real power in both sense.

Hey hey hey guys, why get yourselves so amped up?

Are you surprised? This is how we do here.

Ghosn....he’s a dead man walking.

But we Japanese like to bow, mentally toss the crap out (forget) and plug on as if we didn’t already know, its way better to be at the top.

In all seriousness though, this is always going on everywhere. Japan is just blatantly old fashioned about it.

That photo looks like they're waiting for the starting bell at the county fair pie-eating contest.

@SmithInJapan

Your comment about samurai culture is funny, and i understand the sentiment. But i can’t help but consider that this sort of behaviour might be closely related to samurai culture more than anything else.

Noweigian....Are you saying samurai culture involved taking massive bribes? And if given bribes, trying to return them???

What ARE you saying?

All that’s missing from that photograph is a few samurai ready to lop the heads of these thieving criminals. After all, that is what that bowed position means in Japanese history.

Yeah, I'll just say sorry. But I won't step down, no way... Oh, BTW, I'm not really sorry... I'll just keep collecting my payslip. Thanks

"The disclosure has re-exposed the collusive ties between Japan's nuclear industry and government officials."

Sounds like those guys won't be punished and bribery おof more freedom to act. They must to be prosecuted by law and imprisoned. Just to think what was that of Nissan Carlos Ghosn being prosecuted. Are they still the lords to command this gigantic company?

A gift is when you buy a thing for your money and give it openly. And for a bribe, a person must go to jail. The one who gave the bribe and the one who took the bribe.

It is a serious matter when the white collar execs that take chances with and do damage to our lives and the environment eg TEPCO when dealing with highly dangerous substances, can be allowed to be influenced by bribery!

Conversely, the geriatric that pockets a few rice balls is imprisoned?

The application of the law in Japan is related to power and influence, not, of course, as it should be...