Two more punished following in-house investigation

On June 27, the Mainichi Newspapers Co., Ltd. punished four people, including President Yutaka Asahina (who was ordered to return 10 percent of his directors compensation for one month) and Director Atsushi Hasegawa (who was ordered to return 20 percent of his directors compensation for one month), in addition to the writer in charge of the WaiWai column.

Based on the outcome of our recent in-house investigation, Managing Director Yoshiyuki Watanabe, who served as General Manager of the then-Multimedia Division between April 1999 and June 2004, was also ordered on July 20 to return 20 percent of his directors compensation for one month.

Furthermore, successive earlier managing editors of the Mainichi Daily News were also deemed to be subject to punitive action in addition to the current managing editor, who has already been punished.

In addition, one former managing editor was punished; however, we withhold from disclosing the nature of the punishment since he has stepped down from his position within the company. Another has already quit the Mainichi Newspapers, and yet another has passed away.