Forty-two shareholders of Tokyo Electric Power Co. are demanding that the company's auditors file a 5.5-trillion-yen ($71 billion) damages suit against current and former TEPCO directors over the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
Forty-two shareholders of Tokyo Electric Power Co. are demanding that the company's auditors file a 5.5-trillion-yen ($71 billion) damages suit against current and former TEPCO directors over the accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
The shareholders on Nov. 14 blamed the accident on TEPCO management’s failure to take sufficient measures to deal with earthquakes and tsunami and threatened to file a shareholders' suit under the Company Law unless the auditors take action within 60 days.
They said TEPCO should use the lawsuit to retrieve the losses it has suffered following the Fukushima disaster from directors and use those funds to compensate victims of the accident.
"TEPCO is effectively bankrupt, but management remains almost intact," Tetsuo Horie, a 63-year-old shareholder, told a news conference. "Directors will repeat the same mistakes unless they have taken responsibility."
The shareholders are targeting 61 individuals who served on TEPCO's board of directors since 2002, including Chairman Tsunehisa Katsumata and President Toshio Nishizawa.
They claimed current and former directors were aware of the possibility of an earthquake and tsunami causing a grave accident, citing past studies by the government and TEPCO.
In July 2002, for example, the science ministry's Headquarters for Earthquake Research Promotion said there was a possibility of a major earthquake along the Japan Trench.
TEPCO in 2008 predicted the possibility of a tsunami up to 15.7 meters high at the Fukushima No. 1 plant.
The shareholders said directors failed to improve key facilities such as seawater pumps and emergency power sources in violation of their obligations.
They said the directors are responsible for the approximately 5.5 trillion yen a government panel has estimated will need to be paid in compensation to victims and expenses for decommissioning reactors.