Tokyo District Court orders company to pay compensation in lawsuit to cancel offer, induces agreement through wrong explanation

On the 21st, the Tokyo District Court (Judge Hidehito Hosokawa) ordered the company to pay approximately 600,000 yen in compensation in a lawsuit in which a Vietnamese national who had received a job offer at a computer system company in Tokyo demanded approximately 1.95 million yen in compensation from the company, claiming that he had been given a false explanation and was forced to agree to cancel the offer.

The company reached an agreement to cancel the job offer by explaining that ``a Japanese guarantor is required for employment,'' but the actual employment regulations did not include such a requirement. The ruling stated, ``The incorrect explanation led to the false belief that the revocation of the offer was inevitable,'' and acknowledged that this constituted an illegal act.

The plaintiff came to Japan as an international student in 2018. With a residence status of "Engineer/Specialist in Humanities/International Services," he applied for a job at the defendant's company in May 2014 and received a job offer in July.

However, the company later explained, ``If a Japanese guarantor cannot be provided, the offer will be cancelled.'' In February 2015, the plaintiff agreed to cancel the offer and received a settlement fee of 200,000 yen.

The ruling pointed out that the company's work regulations only stipulated that a guarantor be a "relative within the third degree of kinship" and did not stipulate nationality or country of residence. While there is no problem in asking a prospective employee to provide personal guarantees from the perspective of information security, the court ruled that ``the plaintiff's decision-making was distorted by the incorrect explanation, leading to an agreement to cancel the job offer that was not necessary in the first place.''

The company then recognized that part of the income that the plaintiff would have earned through her work was recognized as damage, and ordered the company to pay it.