Photo/Illutration Japan Post’s Jan. 20 notice is labeled “emergency instruction” (The Asahi Shimbun)

Japan Post Co. has lowered delivery subcontractor penalties again after the Fair Trade Commission deemed certain amounts illegal last year. 

The company changed the amounts only about a month after it made the initial revisions. 

A company notice issued to post offices nationwide on Jan. 20 states that the standard penalty is now 5,000 yen ($32) for a lost or mistaken delivery and a customer complaint over a cigarette odor.

The penalties will be charged from a third instance during the same fiscal year, according to the document, a copy of which was obtained by The Asahi Shimbun.

An earlier notice dated Dec. 19 listed the penalty of 10,000 yen for a lost delivery and a complaint over the smell of a cigarette and 5,000 yen for a mistaken delivery.

The new notice said the latest revisions were made after the company reviewed operational methods again.

“We are extremely sorry for changing our instructions in a short period of time,” it said.

According to sources, the FTC investigated contracts between a post office in the Kanto region and subcontractors commissioned to deliver Yu-Pack parcels from 2023 to 2024.

The commission found that certain penalty amounts were unjustifiably high and that the post office collected those charges from several subcontractors without sufficient explanations.

In June, the FTC concluded that the cases constituted violations of the Subcontract Law and gave administrative guidance to Japan Post to rectify its “breach of contract” penalty system.

In the prefecture where the post office was located, there were instances in which 30,000 yen was charged for a mistaken delivery and 100,000 yen for a complaint over a cigarette odor.

The penalty system for delivery subcontractors was originally introduced in December 2003.

Japan Post reviewed penalty amounts in the Dec. 19 notice, six months after the FTC called for corrective action in the administrative guidance.

The company instructed post offices to inform delivery subcontractors of the revised penalties, which were to be applied from April, in principle.

The first notice was issued a day after The Asahi Shimbun sent a written inquiry on the FTC action to the company.

The second notice was sent six days after the newspaper reported on the earlier revisions on Jan. 14.

In the document, Japan Post for the first time told post offices that the company received an FTC administrative guidance over certain penalty amounts.

Japan Post told The Asahi Shimbun that the company “studied effective operational methods again in light of the fact that the penalty system is designed to improve the quality of parcel collection and delivery services.” 

The company’s revision of penalty amounts barely a month after its initial standardization has resulted in confusion at post offices.

“How are we supposed to explain reasons for the second revisions,” one employee at a Kinki region post office said. “We suspect that the initial response was merely a stopgap measure.” 

The post office had briefed subcontractors on the earlier changes before the second notice arrived.

An employee at a post office in the Kanto region said, “Normally, no one will trust a company if it frequently changes explanations about business transactions in one month.” 

(This article was written by Nobuya Sawa, a senior staff writer, Yosuke Takashima and Yuji Masuyama.)

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