January 1994 — Both Houses of Parliament approve Prime Minister Hosokawa's reform package to deal with political corruption. Hosokawa compromises with opposition parties on his proposed reforms to stem political corruption. His reform includes the creation of 300 single-seat districts in the more powerful lower house, replacing the multiple-seat districts. The change is meant to discourage candidates from the same party from competing against each other by offering favors to constituents. The remaining 200 seats will be allocated in proportion to the vote total each party receives. Although the lower house of Parliament rejected the reforms a week before, both houses have approved them on the condition that they will be revised.
April 8, 1994 — Prime Minister Hosokawa announces his plan to resign from his post. His decision stems from a scandal over his personal finances before he took office. He would be the fourth of Japan's last five prime ministers to have stepped down because of scandal.
June 1996 — Sumito Corporation, a huge Japanese company which distributes industrial and consumer products, announces its loss of US$2.6 million from unauthorized trading. The illegal copper dealings had been taking place for almost 10 years. Sumito says that its former head of copper trading, Yasuo Hamanaka, has confessed to hiding the losses. During investigations carried out by U.S. and British regulators into the price of copper, they find a bank statement that credits Sumito with trade profits that Sumito officers are unable to identify. When Hamahaka finds out about the bank's intentions to reveal the true nature of his trades, he confesses to his superior that he 'doctored' Sumito's accounts as a part of a cover up for the losses.
1998 — Keizo Obuchi of the conservative Liberal Democratic Party (LDP - Jiyu-Minshuto) becomes prime minister.
January 28 1998 — Japanese Finance minister, Hiroshi Mitsuzuka, announces his resignation a day after he pledges to carry out reforms in the Finance Ministry to make its administrative operations more transparent. This announcement follows the arrest of two ministry bank inspectors who are suspected of receiving bribes in the form of corporate entertainment, worth millions of yen from four major banks, in exchange for information on upcoming inspections. 14 officials from the Finance Ministry and Bank of Japan are suspected of embezzling funds for their personal expenses.
Takeshi Komura, Japanese vice finance minister, who is the senior bureaucrat at his ministry, has also resigned amidst these corruption investigations as he claims full responsibility for the scandal.
March 1998 —Yasuyuki Yoshizawa, the head of Bank of Japan's Capital Markets Division, is arrested on charges of corruption. Yoshizawa is suspected of accepting more than US$33,860 in the form of luxurious dinners and other entertainment from two private banks, the Industrial Bank of Japan and Sanwa Bank, in return for leaking sensitive proprietary information. Yasuo Matsushita, the head of the bank, offers to resign and take responsibility for the events leading up to Yoshizawa's arrest.
July 21 1998 — The Japanese Finance Ministry dismisses two more senior officials for corruption. Takashi Sakakibara and Toshio Miyano admit receiving thousands of dollars worth of entertainment, including lavish meals, from financial institutions. Their salaries were stopped when the investigations began. More than 100 officials are expected to be punished as a result of an inquiry into a corruption scandal which forced the resignation of the finance minister.
October 1998 — Fukushiro Nugaka, Japan's defense chief, is accused of encouraging contractors to overcharge for military equipment, in exchange for jobs for retiring bureaucrats. Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi is not considering asking Nuguka to step down.
The upper house of Parliament passes a motion of censure against Nuguka, following which he is constitutionally obligated to resign. After the Parliament's vote of no- confidence, Nuguka resigns from his post of defense minister in November.
February 2000 — Popular news magazine, Weekly Gendai, reports that Toshitaka Furukawa, secretary to the Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi, had improperly acquired stock, months before it merged in 1988, in a telecommunications company that later skyrocketed in value. A Democratic Party legislator, Satsuki Eda, says that the stock deal is suspicious because Mr. Obuchi was an influential policy maker in Japan's telecommunications industry at that time and had insider information of pending mergers. Mr.Obuchi's brother, Mitsuhei, had also acquired shares. The values of shares owned by Mitsuhei and Furukawa have risen from US55,000 in 1988 to US$64 million today. The prime minister's close association with those involved in this scandal has prompted questions about his popularity and credibility. Premier Obuchi denies any wrongdoing.
Furukawa has filed a libel suit against the weekly magazine because it reported that he had deceived the widow of the original owner of the shares by having the stock illegally transferred to his name. Opposition party officials claim the widow told them in an interview that she inherited the shares after her husband's death and never authorized the transfer to Mr. Furukawa. There is mounting pressure from the Parliament and opposition parties on Furukawa to at least provide proof that acquisition of the shares were legal.
March 2000 — Kinya Kiyomizu, a bureaucrat at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, is arrested by the police on bribery charges. He allegedly accepted bribes worth US$18,700 in entertainment from an agricultural cooperative in return for helping attain government subsidies. The two officials of the cooperative Kagawa Prefecture, who are accused of bribing him, are also arrested.
May 2000 — Japan's Finance Minister Kiichi Miyazawa is accused of bribing a lawmaker with 3 million yen (US$27,000). These accusations are leveled in court when Kishiro Nakamura, former construction minister, testified that Miyazawa, when he was prime minister in 1991, had handed a bag of money to Nakamura, to secure his support for legislation raising the level of anti-trust fines, an unpopular plan amongst the LDP. Nakamura was then acting chairman of the LDP in charge of studying reform of the Anti-monopoly law. Miyazawa is considered the most senior government minister.
April 1, 2001 — After more than 20 years of lobbying by Japanese citizens groups, opposition political parties and others, Japan's National Information Disclosure Law comes into effect. This law creates for the first time a legally enforceable right of access to Japanese national government files.
August 9, 2002 — Makiko Tanaka, Japan's first female foreign minister, resigns from Parliament two weeks after she gives testimony in an investigation of misuse of public funds. She had been sacked as foreign minister in January and suspended from the governing LDP in June over allegations that she misappropriated government money to pay staff who were not on her official payroll and then failed to cooperate in inquiries. She has denied any wrongdoing and has not yet been charged with any offense.
August 12, 2002 — Protestors tear up government notices assigning them ID numbers at Japan's Public Management Ministry. The numbers link citizen's personal data on a national computer network. The government claims that by assigning every citizen an 11 digit ID number, it will be able to streamline administrative purposes. Protestors denounce the resident's network implying that it treats them like convicts. Many citizens have raised concerns about leaks and abuses of personal data.
October 2002 — Lawmaker Koki Ishii, of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ - Minshuto) is stabbed to death. Koki Ishii is known for his aggressive probing into ruling party corruption scandals. The motive of the attack is still unknown. Ishii's alleged killer, Hakusui Ito, 48, a well-known ultra-nationalist, surrenders to the police a day later.
March 2004 — An injunction issued by the Tokyo District Court bans the March 25 issue of the weekly magazine Shukan Bunshun. The issue includes an article about the marital affairs of the daughter of Makiko Tanaka, a member of Japan's House of Representatives.
The injunction states that the magazine's publisher cannot sell, give away, or turn over the magazine to a third party unless the article in question is eliminated.
April 2004 — Freelance journalist Saturo Someya is kidnapped and murdered by locksmith Keizo Sakurai and two accomplices. Sakurai pleads guilty to murdering Someya in retribution for Someya's reporting about Sakurai's alleged criminal activities. In his confession Sakurai claimed he tried to force Someya to apologize for portraying Sakurai in a negative light, and he refused to do so he was stabbed and his body was thrown in Tokyo Bay. Someya used to report for various magazines about organized crimes in Tokyo.
April 12, 2006 — Mainichi Shinbun, a Japanese daily journal, carries a front page article about the lack of willingness of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transportation (MLIT- Kokudo Kotsusho) to address the problem of bureaucrat led-bid rigging, where government officials play a crucial role in determining the winner of a bid. The article points out that in response to the request from some construction companies, MLIT officials allegedly solicited continuation of the illegal practice.
