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Technology Dentsu Group

Dentsu charged over employee suicide

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By Jennifer Faull, Deputy Editor

July 9, 2017 | 2 min read

Dentsu has been formally charged over illegal overtime practices following the death of an employee in 2015.

Dentsu

Dentsu's headquarters in Tokyo

Matsuri Takahashi had been working at the Japanese firm for less than a year but is reported to have worked 100 hours of overtime a month leading up to her death, sometimes only sleeping 10 hours a week.

The company’s Tokyo headquarters were subsequently raided by the Tokyo Labor Bureau after the government launched an investigation into the 24-year-old’s death.

Less than three months later the advertising group’s chief executive Tadashi Ishii stepped down, saying he wanted “take responsibility as a manager for failing to fix the company’s notoriously punishing culture of overtime work.”

Local daily newspaper, The Asahi Shimbun, reports that Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office is seeking a fine against the company.

Several Dentsu managers had also been investigated but will not face individual charges on the grounds that their actions were not malicious enough to merit punishment.

Technology Dentsu Group

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