Tecmo sued by every single employee

Written by Joe Martin

June 17, 2008 | 10:10

Tags: #dead-or-alive #doa #itagaki #law #legal #ninja-gaiden #sue

Companies: #japan #tecmo

Things are looking bad for Tecmo, the company behind the Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden games. Not only did the highly regarded developer Tomonobu Itagaki slag off his own games before leaving and suing the company, but now it seems all the other developers at the company are doing the same.

According to Kotaku, on June 16th two Tecmo employees filed a law suit with the Tokyo District Court in a complaint over unpaid wages, demanding 8.3 million yen (around £40,000) in payment.

The lawsuit alleges that that in 2004 all the workers at Tecmo were illegally moved to a 'flexible work hours' system and that from that point onwards no overtime was ever paid to anyone. The plaintiffs in the case now officially represent all 300 Tecmo employees and allege that overtime for employees exceeded 100 hours per month, all of which was unpaid.

Tecmo developer Hiroaki Ozawa is one of the plaintiffs in the case and is also the head of a Tecmo Labour Union which is claiming that the company has produced false documents to attempt to quash this lawsuit and that important accounting documents are being deliberately hidden.

At the same time, Itagaki is alleging in his own lawsuit that promised bonuses were not paid to staff as promised and pursuing compensation on that front.

Things don't look good for Tecmo - but do you really care? Let us know in the forums.
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