Is it discovered that the Employment Adjustment Subsidy was fraudulently received at the HIS subsidiary-GoTo fraudulent apology press conference is also underway?

On November 25, 2024, HIS announced that its subsidiary Number One Travel Shibuya was likely to have fraudulently received an employment adjustment subsidy of approximately 100 million yen during the coronavirus pandemic.

Number One Travel Shibuya, which sells airline tickets to foreigners, is said to have received an employment adjustment subsidy of about 100 million yen from April 2020 ~ March 2023. HIS has acknowledged the possibility of fraudulent receipt of benefits through internal investigations and analysis by external experts, and an investigation by the Tokyo Labor Bureau is currently underway.

If it is confirmed that the fraudulent receipt of the subsidy has been received, Number One Travel Shibuya will return the received subsidy and comply with the disposition of the authorities. In the travel industry, in February of this year, it was discovered that Meitetsu Tourism Service fraudulently received an employment adjustment subsidy of about 22 million yen, and the company returned the fraudulent amount as well as the legitimate subsidy amount of about 2.3 billion yen.

Chairman Sawada's remarks at the "GoTo Travel" apology press conference

In the "Go To Travel" business, a measure to stimulate tourism demand during the Corona disaster, HIS subsidiaries "Miki Tourist" and "Japan Holiday Travel (JHAT)" were found to have fraudulently received approximately 700 million yen.

At that time, Hideo Sawada, chairman of HIS, said at a press conference in December 2021 that he would like to "conduct interviews and educate all the presidents of subsidiaries" as a measure to deter fraud at subsidiaries, and promised to review governance.

In addition, when asked about Chairman Sawada's own responsibility, he said, "It would be a little unavoidable if it was disposed of (by an internal committee)," and emphasized that "HIS itself was not involved in any misconduct," and took an attitude as if to avoid responsibility, saying that "the management of the subsidiary was mismanaged."

At the same time as the press conference at the time of the discovery of the "GoTo Travel" fraud, there was a growing possibility that another subsidiary had fraudulently received employment adjustment subsidies, and at that time, there were doubts about whether Chairman Sawada had interviewed all the presidents of the subsidiaries and reviewed governance.