NTT slashes top execs’ pay as punishment for paying more than their share of $500-a-head meals with government officials
- Reference: 1623301084
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2021/06/10/ntt_ethics_exec_pay_cuts/
- Source link:
NTT is part-owned by Japan’s government and is also the nation’s dominant telco. Meetings with officials from the Ministry of Communications are therefore to be expected.
Local ethics rules don’t prohibit government officials dining with those they regulate. But NTT made the mistake of taking officials to very expensive restaurants — Japanese media report the bill reached the equivalent of over $500 per person on some occasions — and then paying most of the bill.
[1]
The naughty noshing occurred on 29 occasions between 2016 and 2021. The most recent meals came after recently appointed Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga signalled his intention to shake up regulations that make it very hard to port mobile numbers between carriers in Japan. News that NTT had been generous to public officials therefore aroused suspicions that the carrier may have been attempting to curry favour over some delicious Japanese curry * .
[2]Japan’s new PM makes e-government a key plank of his platform
[3]NTT boffins reckon they’ve out-randomed current quantum random number generators
[4]Robots that take out your garbage? Oh What A Feeling, says Toyota as it opens its very own smart city
[5]Japan testing sandwiches that discount themselves as they age
Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications was widely criticised when news of the lavish meals became known.
NTT opened an internal inquiry into the matter, and its subsequent [6]report was published this week. It found that, while the meals were not illegal, they induced public servants to breach their code of ethics and NTT execs should have known better than to do so.
[7]
[8]
Sanctions were therefore in order. NTT President Jun Sawada has had his pay cut by forty per cent for three months, while Senior Executive Vice President Akira Shimada and Senior Vice President Ryota Kitamura will both find their pay packets 20 per cent lighter for three months.
Toshio Iwamoto, an advisor at NTT’s IT services arm NTT Data Corporation, has been handed a thirty per cent pay cut for three months.
[9]
A dozen other employees from several NTT businesses were given a severe reprimand.
Investigations have subsequently found that no decisions made by Ministry officials were compromised by NTT’s generosity. ®
* The Register has no knowledge of the menu at the meals but couldn’t resist some linguistic whimsy — Ed .
Get our [10]Tech Resources
[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YMHiviIk1nZSTzOCUFKgmQAAAIY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/09/17/japan_pm_tech_plans/
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/25/ntt_qrng/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/02/24/toyota_smart_woven_city_japan/
[5] https://www.theregister.com/2020/10/30/japan_snack_waste_taste/
[6] https://group.ntt/en/newsrelease/2021/06/07/210607af.html
[7] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YMHiviIk1nZSTzOCUFKgmQAAAIY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YMHiviIk1nZSTzOCUFKgmQAAAIY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offbeat/legal&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YMHiviIk1nZSTzOCUFKgmQAAAIY&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[10] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Good but extreme
Not sure how much those execs are paid but if your not earning much then 40% pay cut is extreme.
Let’s say a uk exec is on £150k, that’s £12.5k per month -40% leaves £7.5k which is then taxed to take home £5075 instead of £7555.
A significant drop especially when considering mortgages and other life costs that need to come out if that.
It works in Japan due to the honour system, in other countries like the uk execs would just demand more pay to compensate for potential fines like this.
Something does need to be done to curb this kind of behaviour though, maybe some criminal records and jail time will focus the minds more.
Japan is generally very ethical on the whole.
After the egregiousness of the 80s, Japan has clamped down hard on "incentivising" government officials to "consider private business favourably"
Likewise, govt. officials are not allowed to invest or put money into private company purses other than for general daily life.
They have come down REALLY hard on shoring up the borders between private and public interests.
A notable case recently was the firing of a local official who gave a gift, worth only about $200 to a local family after a senior member passed away which is a common occurrence (I have given such gifts several times)...
That seems a bit exaggerated. Did the local official pay out of his own pocket, or did he invoice the department for it ?
In the latter case, it's still a bit exaggerated, but in the former, it becomes outrageous.
I'm clearly dining in the wrong establishments
I've eaten in some of the top-name restaurants in the UK and I'd struggle to hit $500 a head. They must've been playing in the deep end of the wine list.
Having said that: full marks to NTT for giving their Gods a kicking. In most companies, this would be found to be the fault of some lower-grade minion, who would therefore be caused to throw him/herself in front of the incoming flak and take the fall for Those Who Must Be Protected.
TBF it was probably the minion who was told to put the bill on their credit card in the first place.
Gosh, a punishment that seems to fit the crime!
The UK could learn lessons.