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Japanese Agency to Warn Kadokawa on Alleged Violations of Freelance Act

The Yomiuri Shimbun newspaper reported on Monday that the Japan Fair Trade Commission intends to issue a recommendation to publisher and media company Kadokawa regarding suspected violations of Japan's Act on Ensuring Proper Transactions Involving Specified Entrusted Business Operators (often alternatively called the Freelancers Protection Act or Freelance Act).

According to the report, Kadokawa failed to provide a time window for payment to about 100 freelance writers, stylists, and illustrators for some of its magazines in those freelancers' contracts since the winter of 2024, due to the company's custom of placing freelancer orders only verbally. Kadokawa has also supposedly been late on certain payments for freelancers. Article 4.2 of the Freelance Act states that if the freelancer contract does not explicitly state a date of payment, then payment must take place on the same day as the work is delivered to the company that contracted the freelancer.

Kadokawa responded to the report on Monday, saying that it acknowledged that it was under investigation, and that it is responding to the investigation seriously. 

The Freelance Act was enacted in April 2023, promulgated in May 2023, and took effect in November 2024. Prior to this law, a predecessor law that provided other protections to freelancers was the Act against Delay in Payment of Subcontract Proceeds, etc. to Subcontractors (often alternatively called the Subcontract Act). The Japan FTC also warned Kadokawa and its subsidiary Kadokawa LifeDesign for reducing payments to freelancers in violation of the law in November 2024.

Update: Typo fixed. Thanks, enurtsol.

Source: The Yomiuri Shimbun via Hachima Kikō