{"id":284551,"date":"2026-02-06T21:20:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T21:20:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/284551\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T21:20:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T21:20:09","slug":"japans-kddi-finds-up-to-1-5bn-in-fictitious-revenues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/284551\/","title":{"rendered":"Japan\u2019s KDDI finds up to $1.5bn in fictitious revenues"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free<\/p>\n<p class=\"article__content-sign-up-topic-description o3-type-body-base\">Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.<\/p>\n<p>KDDI, one of Japan\u2019s big three telecoms providers, said that as much as \u00a5246bn ($1.5bn) of revenue came from fictitious transactions, marking the latest scandal for a leading Japanese company.<\/p>\n<p>The telecoms group postponed the release of its third-quarter results on Friday because of an ongoing probe into \u201csuspicions regarding inappropriate transactions\u201d at its subsidiaries Biglobe and G-Plan, which provide internet connections and advertising services. <\/p>\n<p>It added that it \u201cconfirmed suspicions that employee(s) of the subsidiaries executed fictitious transactions in the advertising agency business, despite there being no actual advertisers\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>The fraudulent transactions have been confirmed to span across three financial years and could impact the group\u2019s operating income by \u00a550bn. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/stream\/146c44ab-b3fd-4cce-b81d-a003c8e8d0e5\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">KDDI<\/a>, whose flagship mobile brand is au, identified that about \u00a533bn of funds were sent to external parties as agency fees as part of the scheme of fictitious transactions.<\/p>\n<p>The scandal follows a probe into improper accounting at a subsidiary of Nidec, the world\u2019s largest motor manufacturer, which faced a warning that it could be delisted, and Chubu Electric, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/0bb511ab-80dc-44c2-ab06-d0e587c8367e\" title=\"\" data-trackable=\"link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">fabricated seismic data<\/a> for a nuclear plant that it was hoping to reopen. <\/p>\n<p>The lapses come as the Tokyo Stock Exchange has been seeking to overhaul the level of corporate governance in the Japan market to attract overseas investors and enhance the value of its companies. <\/p>\n<p>KDDI first disclosed the issue to the market last month, after realising that revenue figures may have been overstated.<\/p>\n<p>As a result, it set up a special investigation committee chaired by legal professionals and certified accountants, which is due to complete its report by the end of March.<\/p>\n<p>Chief executive Hiromichi Matsuda said in a press conference lasting almost two hours that \u201cthis incident has seriously damaged the credibility of KDDI as a whole\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":284552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[72,113,61,60],"class_list":{"0":"post-284551","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=284551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/284551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/284552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=284551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=284551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=284551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}