Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has pulled A&D Co.'s license to certify specified measuring instruments, an administrative penalty that takes effect immediately and cuts off a compliance service the company has run for years.
The ministry issued the revocation on July 14, 2026, after holding a hearing with A&D on July 3. A&D Co. is a consolidated subsidiary of TSE Prime-listed A&D Holon Holdings (code 7745), based in Tokyo's Toshima ward and led by president Yasunobu Morishima. Under Japan's measurement law, a designated verification body performs the official checks that specified measuring instruments must pass before they can be legally used or sold. Losing that designation means A&D can no longer carry out those checks itself.
What customers lose, and what they don't
A&D says it is asking other organizations to cooperate so that verification work can continue with as little disruption to customers as possible, though it has not named which outside bodies will step in or over what timeframe. The company is explicit about the boundary of the penalty: it applies only to the verification service A&D performed as a designated body, not to the instruments themselves. Products carrying the compliance mark that are made by group company A&D Manufacturing continue to be produced and sold as before, and A&D Holon says it sees no current impact on sales activity.
A&D Co.'s own business spans measuring and metering instruments, medical and health equipment, and semiconductor-related devices, and it operates with 50 million yen in capital. The verification function sits alongside that broader instrument business rather than replacing it, which is why the parent company can draw a line between a regulatory loss and a commercial one.
The company's own arithmetic
A&D Holon Holdings says it expects the financial impact on the group to be minor at this stage, while promising to disclose more if the picture changes. That is the company's own assessment, not an independent estimate, and it comes with the usual caveat that circumstances could shift once the search for a substitute verification arrangement plays out. The company has also apologized to customers and shareholders for the disruption and says it will tighten internal controls and legal compliance following the ministry's finding.
What is missing from Tuesday's notice is any detail on why METI revoked the designation in the first place. The disclosure references an earlier June 16 notice that a hearing was coming, but the underlying finding that triggered the hearing, and the revocation that followed, is not spelled out in the material A&D has released. Readers looking for the substance behind the sanction will have to wait for either a fuller METI notice or a further disclosure from A&D itself.