"浅井氏及びアップリンクとの合意に際して", 26 Oct 2020

[Japanese-to-English translation provided by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.]

…We would like to report that we have reached an agreement with UPLINK and Mr. Asai.

…We are not completely satisfied with Mr. Asai and UPLINK's apologies…We decided that [rather than pursuing a legal victory] the better outcome would be to establish measures that would reduce the burden on current UPLINK staff…We thus decided to forgo a legal ruling and prioritize getting concessions from the company on the following points:

• Mr. Asai will sell a portion of his UPLINK shares to those outside the company, increasing the number of shareholders.
• UPLINK will establish a board of directors where at least one director will be an external stakeholder.
• UPLINK will establish a third-party committee that is separate from the board of directors. The committee will comprise of external stakeholders and investigate labour conditions, including harassment. The committee will share their findings with the board of directors as necessary, and the board will be required to comply with the committee’s directives.
• For a period of time, UPLINK will set up a monitor to display the document that the plaintiffs delivered to Mr. Asai and UPLINK at the time of the formal apology. The document will be displayed in each office and placed so that staff can see it. The company will communicate the existence of this display to employees via email and other methods.

In particular, we were able to establish the third-party committee by proposing potential candidates...