Japan's trade ministry has moved from questions to orders at Chubu Electric Power. At his post-cabinet press conference on 6 November, the minister of economy, trade and industry, Akazawa, said METI had issued a business improvement order to the utility under the Electricity Business Act that day.
What the order requires
According to the minister, the order directs Chubu Electric to carry out operational improvements, starting with a fundamental strengthening of its legal-compliance framework and its handling of internal whistleblowing reports.
The order also requires the company to report to METI continuously on how it is implementing those measures. The minister said that progress must first be verified objectively using outside personnel. He said the ministry will keep responding "with maximum strictness" so that the reforms are fundamental, sufficient and reliably carried out. The minister left the detailed contents of the order to ministry staff, who were to brief later. The briefing text is not part of this record, so the order's deadlines and reporting schedule are not given here.
How it got here
The minister said that METI received Chubu Electric's reply on 29 October to a reporting-collection order covering three cases of inappropriate conduct. The ministry then prepared the improvement order and issued it once all procedures were complete. For the ministry's earlier step, see Earlier Tokyo Brief coverage.
The minister's reading of the problem
Asked about the order, Akazawa said the three cases appear not to have arisen in the same department, but that he believes governance needs a thorough review. He pointed to compliance awareness and to internal whistleblowing reports that were not acted on, and said he had to recognise "quite big problems."
He added that safety is the absolute precondition for the public, and that nuclear power and similar policies are pursued with public understanding, so the matter must be corrected properly. The transcript does not describe any plant shutdown or licence restriction as part of the order, and the minister's remarks do not state one.
The next checkpoints are the outside-verified progress reports Chubu Electric must now send to METI.