Japanese oil giant Eneos Holdings confirmed Wednesday that the abrupt resignation of its chairman and CEO in August was linked to his involvement in a sexual assault case revealed earlier the same day by a Japanese tabloid.
In a statement, Eneos said that the behavior of its former CEO Tsutomu Sugimori was “extremely regrettable” and contrary to values such as respect for human rights, which the group says it has made “absolute priorities”.
Eneos, which announced on August 12 the surprise resignation of Mr. Sugimori for “personal reasons”, did not provide details of the affair but referred in its statement on Wednesday to information published in the media.
According to the tabloid magazine Shukan Shincho, Mr. Sugimori sexually assaulted a bar hostess in Okinawa Prefecture (southwestern Japan) in July, including kissing her by force. She would have been physically injured while trying to resist him.
Eneos assured in its statement that it has avoided talking openly about the case until now to protect the privacy of the victim. The #MeToo social movement, which has liberated the voices of many victims of sexual violence around the world since 2017, has had less of an impact in Japan than in many other countries, although it has helped to move the lines a bit there as well.
Recently, for example, a former member of the Japanese Self-Defense Forces went public with her struggle to have a sexual assault she says she suffered at the hands of male colleagues last year recognized. This prompted the Japanese Ministry of Defense to resume the investigation and to look into many other similar cases revealed in its wake.
