KYOTO (Kyodo) The scandal-hit Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation may file a criminal complaint against its former director and his relatives for engaging in allegedly improper business practices, the Kyoto-based body's new chief said Tuesday.

"We have the option of filing a criminal complaint in mind, while monitoring progress in investigations by the Kyoto District Public Prosecutor's Office and our own in-house survey," Akio Kioi, said at his first news conference in Kyoto.

Former director Noboru Okubo, 73, stepped down earlier this month after he was accused of personally profiting from business between the foundation and companies managed by his relatives.

"A series of incidents indicates how the (former) management was insensitive to being compliant," Kioi said, referring to murky deals between the foundation, Okubo and his family companies.

Sources close to the organization said Tuesday that Okubo has had a publisher, one of the firms headed by his relatives, compensate him for personal losses from stock trading since at least since 1992, when the foundation was founded.

Okubo once used a credit card in the organization's name for personal spending and later asked the publisher to pay his personal expenses, they said.

Okubo owed the publisher ¥480 million as of the end of last year, they said.

Okubo received about ¥53 million in retirement money from the kanji foundation in September 2007 while he was still in office and without the approval of its board, they said.

He and four of his relatives earned ¥530 million through business conducted with the foundation.