OSAKA -- Kansai International Airport Co. announced on July 31 that it has created a charter for corporate behavior in the company, which states that if misconduct occurs, the top management will severely punish those responsible, including self-imposing punishment on the management, if necessary.
The semi-public company decided to create the charter in January, after its former president Tsuneharu Hattori was arrested on suspicion of receiving bribes from an Osaka-based oil dealer at the center of a massive tax evasion and fraud scandal. The charter says, among other things, that the company will disclose its business and financial conditions as much as possible, and it will work on establishing a fair and transparent relationship with its business partners, politicians and bureaucrats.
The Japan Federation of Economic Organizations (Keidanren) has worked with member companies to create a charter to strengthen corporate ethics, amid the surfacing of various corporate scandals, such as offering benefits to "sokaiya" corporate extortionists. KIAC President Kiyoyasu Mikanagi said KIAC is the first government-affiliated company to establish such a charter. Mikanagi said the company will make a passport-size pamphlet spelling out the charter, which will be distributed to some 490 employees. The company will also send its executives to Keidanren's seminars on corporate ethics, he said.