Kirin executives resign in bribery scandal

Modern Brewery Age, July 26, 1993

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, the chairman of Kirin Brewery Co. will resign after disclosures that the company paid large sums of money to racketeers.

The chairman, Hideyo Motoyama, will resign at the end of the month. Two other top Kirin executives, a vice president and an executive director, will also step down.

Japanese press reports said that four low-level Kirin executives were charged last week with allegedly paying extortionists a total of 33 million yen (over $300,000) to ensure that racketeers wouldn't disrupt Kirin's annual stockholders' meeting. Kirin has allegedly made such payments for the past ten years.

According to analysts, this latest scandal provides more evidence of the ties between Japan's underworld and large corporations. Many companies prefer to pay racketeers than suffer disruption at annual meetings.

Kirin has denied that its top executives were aware of the alleged payments. The company said that the resignations were to atone for the "inconvenience" the scandal caused the public.