Inappropriate transactions found at Japan airport terminal
An investigation committee set up by Japan Airport Terminal Co. said Friday that a subsidiary engaged in inappropriate transactions that benefited a consultant firm headed by the 52-year-old son of Makoto Koga, former secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party.
The panel found that the transactions were led by Japan Airport Terminal President Nobuaki Yokota and tolerated by Chairman Isao Takashiro. Both Yokota and Takashiro resigned on the same day.
The panel's investigation found that the Tokyo-based subsidiary, Big Wing Co., paid a total of some 400 million yen to the consultant firm over 10 years through 2016 in the guise of commission fees for a massage chair business at Tokyo's Haneda Airport, although actual work was performed by another company.
The payments continued even after the Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau warned that they amounted to concealment of income totalling about 100 million yen.
The panel found no evidence that the company sought favours from Koga or his son.
"As a company that provides public services, we should never engage (in such transactions)," Kazuhito Tanaka, who became president of Japan Airport Terminal on Friday, told a press conference in Tokyo. "We take the matter extremely seriously."
The new president said the company will cut ties with Koga's son and consider seeking damages after consulting with lawyers.
[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]
