<figure id="attachment_457816" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-457816" style="width: 8192px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="ead333cb"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2026/02/232e20fdce20b7ad87af2441998ae614.jpeg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-457816" class="wp-caption-text">Hiroshi Mabara, then president of Prudential Life Insurance Company, speaking at a press conference on January 23.</figcaption></figure>
<h2><span class="strongInContent"> Even those who have served with distinction &#8220;will not receive a penny of severance pay.&#8221;</span></h2>
<p> A former executive life planner who had been a &#8220;legend&#8221; at Prudential Life Insurance Co. had fought in court with his old employer over the nonpayment of retirement benefits, and it turned out that he had reached a settlement.</p>
<p> Prudential Life Insurance Company, a leading foreign life insurance company known as a &#8220;professional group,&#8221; is now facing its first crisis since its founding. Earlier this year, an unprecedented scandal was uncovered involving more than 100 employees and former employees, who are alleged to have fraudulently obtained a total of more than 3.1 billion yen from customers. The fact that they had been preying on customers for a long period of time by offering fictitious investment offers and other methods came to light. In response to this situation, the company&#8217;s president was replaced on February 1, and the company took responsibility for the situation. The Financial Services Agency also conducted an on-site inspection of the company, and its brand image has taken a serious hit.</p>
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<p> It has been pointed out that behind this scandal lies a unique corporate culture that can be described as a results-oriented approach. The strictness of this culture was no exception, even for those who had contributed to the company over the years. Even those who were well known within the industry were subjected to a &#8220;code&#8221; that deviated greatly from the norms of the world without mercy.</p>
<p> The rule was that &#8220;if you change jobs to another company in the same industry, you will not be paid a single yen in severance pay.</p>
<p> Mr. A, who held the position of &#8220;executive life planner,&#8221; the highest position in the company&#8217;s sales staff, decided to fight this unreasonable system in court.</p>
<p> Mr. A, who joined the company in the early 2000s and has been at the forefront of the company for nearly 20 years, was the plaintiff in the lawsuit. A former sales employee of the company described Mr. A&#8217;s reputation within the company as follows: &#8220;Mr. A is a man that everyone in the company knows.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Mr. A was a well-known figure within the company. Of course he had excellent sales performance, but that was not all. He was a leader of outstanding character, holding key positions in top sales organizations around the world. His guidance was strict, but he generously shared the know-how he had developed through his own efforts with his junior colleagues. He is truly worthy of being called &#8216;Mr. Prudential.</span></p>
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<p> A few years ago, Mr. A suddenly left the company. He changed jobs to work for a joint agency that handled a wide variety of insurance products under contract with several insurance companies.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Mr. A thought, &#8216;In order to make proposals that are truly beneficial to customers, I should go to an agency that can handle products from multiple companies. He had a strong attachment to Prudential, but I heard that he chose to change jobs based on his sincerity to customers.</span></p>
<p> However, the company&#8217;s response was cold: Mr. A was not paid a single yen in severance pay. The severance payment that should have been paid to Mr. A was several million yen. The reason was that the company&#8217;s &#8220;sales staff retirement allowance&#8221; was &#8220;zero. The reason was a sentence in the company&#8217;s &#8220;Sales Employee Severance Pay Regulations.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Sales employees who fall under any of the following items may be partially or fully disqualified from receiving severance pay. &#8230; (3) If the employee has been engaged in the business of another company in the same line of business without the prior consent of the company.</span></p>
<p> &#8220;If you go to another company in the same industry, you will not receive severance pay. This is a well-known fact to all Prudential employees, but Mr. A did not cry himself to sleep, but filed a lawsuit with the Tokyo District Court. According to the complaint, he challenges the company on two main issues.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" If he goes to another company in the same industry, the company will not pay him severance pay."></div>
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<h2><span class="strongInContent">Rebellion of &#8220;Mr. Prudential</span></h2>
<p> One is that &#8220;Mr. A had obtained the company&#8217;s prior approval for his job change,&#8221; claiming that he had submitted the prescribed documents and obtained Prudential&#8217;s prior approval for his job change and that this did not constitute &#8220;working for another company in the same industry without permission,&#8221; a requirement for nonpayment of benefits.</p>
<p> Another point is the illegality of the regulations themselves.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> The company&#8217;s employees have contributed to the company by signing numerous contracts over a period of about 20 years, and it is not right for them to lose all of their services just because they changed jobs. In the first place, since the Constitution guarantees &#8220;freedom of choice of occupation,&#8221; any company rule that excessively restricts employees from changing jobs by holding their severance pay hostage is contrary to social common sense (public order and morals) and is legally invalid.</span></p>
<p> (Summary of Mr. A&#8217;s complaint).</p>
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<p> Prudential denied Mr. A&#8217;s claim that he had obtained the company&#8217;s prior consent to change jobs. The company countered that the document on which Mr. A based his claim was &#8220;merely a procedural document, not an approval of the job change itself.</p>
<p> While the argument over whether or not Mr. A had given his consent continued, what arguments did both sides make regarding the essential issue of whether or not the company was justified in denying severance pay? In its brief, Prudential argued the justification for not paying severance pay as follows</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> [Prudential] has a unique training program that is not available at any other company, and therefore, it dares to hire only inexperienced salespeople who are not of color and have no experience in insurance recruiting. &#8230;(omitted) &#8230;Defendant has its own know-how on training sales staff and life insurance sales, and spends a great deal of money on training them. If it allows sales staff to resign without any restrictions, it will not be able to recover the great amount of money it has spent on training them, and furthermore, defendant&#8217;s valuable know-how will be lost to other companies in the industry. In addition, the valuable know-how of the defendant would flow out to other companies in the same industry. In order to avoid such a situation, the defendant has a legitimate interest in disallowing severance pay to its sales employees who find employment with competitors in order to discourage them from working for other companies in the same industry.</span></p>
<p> In other words,</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> In other words, &#8220;We hired inexperienced employees and spent a great deal of cost and time to teach them our unique know-how, so we will not pay severance pay if they take that know-how with them to other companies in the same industry.</span></p>
<p> If they take that know-how with them to other companies in the same industry, we will not pay them severance. In addition, Prudential cited a major Japanese life insurance company to prove the superiority of its sales staff, and asserted the superiority of its sales staff with specific figures.</p>
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<p> According to the defendant&#8217;s second brief, Prudential&#8217;s new policy amount per sales representative in fiscal year 2006 was approximately 7.3 times that of Nippon Life Insurance and 13.9 times that of Dai-ichi Life Insurance, and the company claimed that this overwhelmingly high productivity was the result of its unique know-how. In response, Mr. A&#8217;s side has vehemently refuted this claim.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> Although Mr. A received training from the company when he was newly hired, his sales performance since then has been supported by his individual skills, and it is difficult to say that it was the result of the company&#8217;s special know-how. The defendant company uses language as if it has special sales know-how, but the turnover rate of its sales staff is extremely high, and it is clear that the defendant company&#8217;s know-how does not play a key role in improving sales performance at all.</span></p>
<p> In other words, even if there was training when he first joined the company, it was only his own efforts and skills that supported his long career thereafter. If the &#8220;special know-how&#8221; that the company prides itself on really guarantees performance, why do so many employees drop out and quit? The company argued strongly that the confiscation of severance pay for reasons far removed from the actual situation violated the constitutional right to freedom of professional choice and was invalid in violation of public order and morals.</p>
<p> To begin with, Prudential&#8217;s retirement allowance system itself is structured in such a way that &#8220;if you don&#8217;t work long enough, you won&#8217;t be rewarded. The former employee explained this point as follows: &#8220;In fact, Prudential&#8217;s retirement system does not reward long service.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> In fact, Prudential&#8217;s retirement benefit system has a big barrier: &#8220;20 years and 55 years old.</span><span class="strongInContent"> In fact, Prudential&#8217;s retirement plan has a big barrier: &#8220;20 years of service and 55 years of age. You must have been with the company for at least 20 years and be at least 55 years old. If you don&#8217;t meet both of these requirements, the coefficient used to calculate your retirement benefit is kept extremely low.</span></p>
<p> Although Mr. A was a distinguished employee who rose to the highest rank of &#8220;executive,&#8221; he fell just short of this requirement. As a result, his severance pay was only a few million yen. If he had met the conditions, it could have been tens of millions of yen. The company refused to recognize even this right, which could be considered a small amount considering his contribution to the company, on the grounds that he had &#8220;changed jobs&#8221; to another company in the same industry.</p>
<p> Both sides were at loggerheads in this trial. The trial ended in a surprising manner. A &#8220;settlement&#8221; was reached for half of the amount claimed. The reason for the settlement is unknown, but it is possible that the Prudential side avoided having a clear judicial decision on the &#8220;rules for not paying severance pay.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" We will refrain from commenting."></div>
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<h2><span class="strongInContent">Once you quit, you are not even allowed to &#8220;call your clients.</span></h2>
<p> In the end, the dispute over severance pay ended in a &#8220;settlement&#8221; in which half of the amount claimed was paid. However, Prudential&#8217;s unusual vigilance toward sales employees who leave the company is not limited to severance pay.</p>
<p> Once they leave the company, they are prohibited from contacting any of the customers with whom they signed contracts during their tenure. This applies to all industries, not just those in the same insurance business, and even classmates and relatives from school are not exempt. A former employee of the company said, &#8220;After leaving the company, you are not allowed to contact them at all.</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> After you leave, you are not allowed to contact them at all. You are made to sign a written pledge twice, once when you join the company and once when you leave. When you join the company, you are asked to make a list of 100 friends and acquaintances, which is called &#8220;Project 100,&#8221; and you are encouraged to sell to them. However, once you leave the company, even your personal friends are treated as &#8216;company customers&#8217; and even contacting them is a litigation risk. There have actually been people who have been warned by their companies that they will face legal action if they are found to have contacted an old customer out of necessity.</span></p>
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<p> Friday Digital sent a letter of inquiry to the company regarding the reasonableness of a series of rules for not paying severance pay, consistency with the &#8220;freedom of choice of occupation&#8221; guaranteed by the Constitution, the reasons for the settlement, and the actual operation of the prohibition on contacting customers after retirement.</p>
<p> In response, Prudential Life Insurance&#8217;s public relations team responded,</p>
<p><span class="strongInContent"> In response, the PR team responded, &#8220;We are very sorry to hear your questions, but this case involves individual litigation matters, so we will refrain from commenting on the details of the case or its background.</span></p>
<p> The team responded, &#8220;We are sorry for your concern, but this case involves individual litigation matters. The team avoided any mention of the case.</p>
<p> Even a person of such distinguished service as Mr. A cannot receive his severance pay without filing a lawsuit. Moreover, he is not even allowed to greet his friends who have placed their trust in him. This is the reality for retirees of a glamorous foreign insurance company.</p>
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<p> The current employees, who are alleged to have committed fraud due to the hardships of life, and those who have served the company well, who are cut off as soon as they leave the company because they &#8220;do not generate profits. At first glance, these issues may seem different, but the underlying logic seems to be that &#8220;those who earn the most money are the righteous.</p>
<p> This trial and the massive scandal that is shaking the world can be said to be two sides of the same coin, the result of a distorted corporate culture that prioritizes profit over people.</p>


 Shinsuke Sakai

 Kazuhiko Nakamura

 A scandal involving 107 employees of Prudential Life Insurance Company, who offered fictitious investment stories to defraud customers of their money. In the past, elite employees known as "executives" filed a lawsuit against the company. What are the details?

The court case brought by Prudential’s “Executives” is illegal.

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