Photo/Illutration A Tokyo soba noodle stand operated by the Nadai Fuji Soba chain, whose eateries are located mainly in front of train stations in the metropolitan area (Satoru Eguchi)

Staff at a soba noodle stand chain were asked to falsify attendance records so the company could qualify for a government subsidy program for COVID-19 relief, according to sources.

A company executive at Tokyo-based Daitan Dish, which oversees the operation of the Nadai Fuji Soba chain, asked staff to report some of the days they worked as taking leave in their time sheets, the sources said.

Daitan Dish is one of the Daitan group companies, which operate more than 100 noodle stands of the soba chain in the Tokyo metropolitan area.

The issue came to light after an employee raised concerns that following such instructions could result in the chain operator fraudulently applying for the government’s subsidy program for maintaining employment.

Businesses can receive the subsidy if they retained employees who had to take leave due to the novel coronavirus pandemic by paying them allowances instead of firing them.

A source in the operator admitted that the executive gave the directions but said that the company did not fraudulently apply for or receive the subsidy since it corrected the practices after being alerted about them.

A Daitan Dish executive sent an email in mid-May to some of the staff, asking them not to punch their timecards two days a week because the executive wanted to treat their attendance on those days as “special leave,” according to sources in Daitan Dish.

The company referred to leave that makes it eligible for the subsidy program as “special leave,” the sources said.

The executive also told the staff in the email that they didn't need to come to work on those days if they were doing what they were supposed to do by working from home or at their noodle stands.

But a source who was given the instructions said, “I was busier than usual at the time to deal with shortened operating hours and taking measures against infections, so I worked every day on weekdays.”

In early June, when the chain fully resumed late-night operations, the executive emailed those working at noodle stands operated by two staff to report days that one of their pairs worked as taking leave.

“If you are worried about operating your stand alone, your pair is asked to report to work while on special leave,” the executive wrote in the email.

An employee who received the instructions notified another executive in the Daitan group of the request, saying Daitan Dish could end up fraudulently receiving the subsidy if staff followed the instructions, according to Daitan Holdings, which manages the Daitan group companies.

After learning of the matter, Daitan Dish stopped treating its staff’s attendance as special leave when they were actually at work.

It applied for the subsidy program in August by submitting staff attendance records that were corrected to delete the bogus special leave, according to a source in the company.

“We prevented ourselves from fraudulently applying for the subsidy,” Daitan Holdings told The Asahi Shimbun. “But we take seriously the fact that directions that could lead to such fraud were given to our staff and offer our apologies.”

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