Nomura Securities Co. was ordered Wednesday by the Tokyo District Court to pay 56 million yen in consolation money to 12 female employees for the mental pain inflicted by the securities firm's discriminatory employment system.
The system remained in effect even after the Equal Employment Opportunity Law was revised in a bid to eliminate gender discrimination in 1999.
It is the first time a court has ruled as illegal an employment system that automatically places men on a managerial track and women on a secretarial one.