Ruling on Nuclear Accident: ¥13 Trillion Compensation Decision Overturned to Zero

Editorial

15:45 JST, June 7, 2025

The judicial ruling was that the scale of the tsunami had exceeded predictions and its occurrence could not have been foreseen. Nevertheless, it would be unjustifiable if an accident at a nuclear power plant were considered unavoidable. It is important to apply the lessons learned for the future.

In a shareholder derivative lawsuit, in which about 40 individual shareholders demanded that five former executives of Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings, Inc. pay about ¥23 trillion in damages to the utility firm over the 2011 accident at the Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant, the Tokyo High Court has overturned a lower court ruling in favor of the shareholders.

The Tokyo District Court had ordered the former executives to pay over ¥13 trillion in compensation on the grounds that they had failed to take measures to prevent damage caused by the massive tsunami. The high court, however, found that “the tsunami was unforeseeable” and rescinded the lower court ruling.

The district court found that the government’s long-term assessment, which noted the possibility of a massive earthquake, was “scientifically reliable.” But the high court found that it had a weak basis and that “it could not be helped that the former executives had no sense of urgency.”

The high court ruling was probably based on its judgment that the massive earthquake and tsunami were beyond human knowledge.

Trials regarding the TEPCO nuclear accident have been conducted through three routes. Supreme Court rulings have been finalized in two of them.

In 2022, the Supreme Court handed down a judgment that covered multiple civil lawsuits in which evacuees and others sought damages from the government. The ruling said that the scale of the tsunami was much greater than predicted and thus the accident could not have been prevented. In a criminal trial, the Supreme Court in March this year acquitted the former management personnel who had been charged with professional negligence resulting in death and injury.

The most recent high court ruling can be said to have further strengthened the trend of judicial judgments finding that the tsunami was unforeseeable and the nuclear accident was unavoidable.

This trial also raised a question about the way responsibility for the accident should be pursued. There is no way that the individuals could pay the more than ¥13 trillion in compensation ordered by the district court.

In shareholder derivative suits, there has been a spate of court rulings ordering very high levels of compensation, such as one in which former Olympus Corp. executives, including a former chairman, were ordered to pay ¥59.4 billion in damages to the major optical and electronic device maker over their past cover-up of huge losses.

However, most of the suits were cases in which executives were involved in wrongdoing, and it is unusual for a company like TEPCO to be held responsible for an accident caused by a natural disaster. Some in the business community have said that if these trials continue, there will be no one left to take executive posts.

Japan’s nuclear energy policy has been advanced by government planning and the electric power companies operating nuclear power plants. Is it appropriate to hold the management of a company responsible for all aspects of a nuclear accident? It may be necessary to reconsider the system.

Even though the legal responsibility of the former executives has been dismissed this time, it does not mean that TEPCO as a company is exempt from responsibility. Many people are still suffering due to the accident. It is imperative that the operators involved in nuclear power plants take every possible safety measure to prevent such an accident from happening again.

(From The Yomiuri Shimbun, June 7, 2025)