Fuji TV has filed a lawsuit against two of its former executives to seek ¥5 billion ($34 million) in damages over their mishandling of a “sexual violence” scandal involving former TV personality Masahiro Nakai.

The broadcaster claims that former Fuji TV President Koichi Minato and former Executive Vice President Toru Ota failed to fulfill their duties as management to respond appropriately — such as conducting a thorough investigation into the incident and implementing preventive measures — when the case involving an alleged sexual assault was first reported to them.

The lawsuit, filed at the Tokyo District Court on Thursday, stated that the two should be held responsible for a portion of the nearly ¥45.3 billion in losses that the company accrued by June 30.

Fuji TV claimed that Minato and Ota not only failed to consider the victim’s well-being, a former employee of the broadcaster who came forward with the allegations, but also failed to prevent or minimize the damage caused to the company by the incident.

A third-party panel noted in a report released in March that Minato and Ota were among a handful of people at the company that initially received reports about the incident involving former boy band member Nakai, who retired from the entertainment industry after the scandal emerged, and a former Fuji TV newscaster.

However, the two executives quickly dismissed the incident as being a “private problem between a man and a woman” without conducting a thorough investigation of the matter or consulting appropriate personnel at the company, such as its corporate compliance department, it noted.

The panel concluded that the incident occurred as “an extension of work,” and that the two executives had grossly mishandled the situation.

Minato announced his resignation several weeks after the scandal emerged in December, while Ota, who served at Fuji TV at the time of the 2023 incident involving Nakai, in April stepped down as president of Kansai Television, a sister company of the broadcaster.