Tokyo court orders ex-execs in Fukushima disaster to pay $95bn in damages

A Tokyo court has ordered four former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) to pay the utility around $95 billion as the recompensate for failing to prevent the 2011 crisis at the wrecked Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant.

In the closely watched ruling, the court said the former chairman of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Tsunehisa Katsumata, along with three other former executives failed to fulfill their duty to implement the utmost safety precautions to the nuclear plant.

The court concluded that the executives could have prevented the disaster if they had paid the proper care and attention.

The ruling, which was based on a civil case brought by Tepco shareholders, marks the first time a court lays the responsibility of the nuclear on the former executives’ door.

Presiding Judge Yoshihide Asakura said the former Tepco executives “fundamentally lacked safety awareness and a sense of responsibility.” 

 “One accident with a nuclear power plant leads to irreversible damage to both human lives and the environment. The executives of companies that operate such plants also have a huge responsibility on them that is incomparable with other companies,” said Yui Kimura, a member of the plaintiff in the court.

“I think the court's judgment says that anyone who does not have the determination or capability to take on that responsibility should not become an executive,” Kimura told a news conference following the ruling.

The ruling was in contradiction with a Supreme Court decision last month that found the government not responsible for paying compensation sought by thousands of Fukushima residents over the loss of jobs, livelihoods and communities.

The ruling comes on the heels of a criminal trial in 2019 in a Tokyo district court, where judges exonerated three Tepco executives from their crimes, ruling that they could not have foreseen the huge tsunami that struck the nuclear power plant.

However, a study in 2015 showed that the nuclear disaster at Daiichi Nuclear Plant was preventable.

“The Fukushima accident was preventable if international best practices and standards had been followed, if there had been international reviews, and had common sense prevailed in the interpretation of preexisting geological and hydrodynamic findings,” the study wrote.

The study also painted a bleak picture of failures of Tepco before the disaster, as well as the company’s handling of the crisis.

The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, located on Japan’s northeast coast, was crippled after going into meltdown following an earthquake and tsunami in 2011.

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