TOKYO (Reuters) – An independent committee investigating a graft scandal at Kansai Electric Power Co <9503.T>, Japan’s second-largest utility, will release its findings on March 14, a representative of the committee said on Friday.
Kansai Electric said in September that 20 company officials had received payments and gifts worth 320 million yen ($2.9 million) from a local government official in Takahama where the company has a nuclear power station, hurting the Japanese public’s trust in nuclear power companies.
The utility’s President Shigeki Iwane said in October he would step down the day the third-party probe committee returns its findings to take responsibility for the scandal.
The committee will report its findings to the company and hold a news conference in Osaka on March 14, said a lawyer at law firm Mori Hamada & Matsumoto, which is representing the committee.
A Kansai Electric spokeswoman said the company plans to hold a board meeting to select a new president on that day, but when and how it discloses the findings haven’t been determined as of Friday.
(Reporting by Yuka Obayashi; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)
