Toyota in damage control mode after American exec arrested
Reuters By Chang-Ran Kim and Joshua Hunt
7 hours ago


By Chang-Ran Kim and Joshua Hunt

TOKYO (Reuters) - Toyota Motor Corp moved into damage control mode on Friday after its new communications chief Julie Hamp, an American and its first senior woman executive, was arrested on suspicion of illegally bringing pain killers into Japan just two months after her appointment.

Toyota President Akio Toyoda apologized for the incident at a news conference and reiterated the company's belief that Hamp had no intent of breaking the law.

"To me, executives and staff who are my direct reports are like my children," he said.

"It's the responsibility of a parent to protect his children and, if a child causes problems, it's also a parent's responsibility to apologize."

Japanese media reports, citing police investigators, said 57 addictive Oxycodone pills were found in a small parcel labeled "necklaces" that was sent from the United States and addressed to Hamp in Japan. The pills were in packets or buried at the bottom of the parcel, which also contained toy pendants and necklaces, they said.

Hamp, a former General Motors Co and PepsiCo Inc executive, told police she did not think she had imported an illegal substance, a spokesman for Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department said.

A police official declined to comment on the latest media reports about the parcel.

Hamp was appointed managing officer in April as part of a drive to diversify Toyota's male-dominated, mostly Japanese executive line-up. She joined Toyota's North American unit in 2012 and this month relocated to Tokyo, where she was to be based. She had been staying in a hotel, a Toyota spokeswoman said.

Toyoda vowed that the automaker would maintain its policy of seeking out talent regardless of gender or nationality and expressed regret that the company had not provided enough support for an employee who was not Japanese and had come to live in Japan.

Oxycodone is a prescription drug in both the United States and Japan. Bringing it into Japan requires prior approval from the government and it must be carried by the individual, a health ministry official said.

Hiroaki Okamoto, a criminal defense lawyer at the Nakamura International Criminal Defense Office in Tokyo who is not involved in Hamp's case, said the large number of pills meant that, if indicted, she could face years in prison, followed by deportation.

The maximum sentence for smuggling drugs with the intent to sell is life in prison, he said. Even if indicted for smuggling for personal use, it would be tough to get a suspended sentence because of the large number of pills, he said.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/toyota...--finance.html

 

Poor people aren't the only ones with drug problems, and she has some strong stuff. prescription opiates are really hard to find as almost every pill is tracked. Lack of prescription pills leads people to start taking on heroin...

 

Shades of John DeLorean and the cocaine bust?

He maintained to his dying day, though, that it was a set-up.

 

If it was an accident then why the elaborate attention to detail to conceal the pills?!?!

I call shenanigans!

 

Idiot. And I often wonder how so many reach the c-level when they have the brains and emotions of a teenager.

 

Not to mention that was his defense in court that set him free!

Speaking of musclecar icons, I bet you would enjoy reading "Glory Days", Jim Wangers autobiography.

 

Actually, she may or may not have a point. If she was carrying a substance that is prescription-legal in both the U.S. and Japan, had a signed prescription for it by a person licensed to practice medicine, then why all the hassles and formalities about a third step bringing it into the country? Of course, if she did not have a legal prescription for it, could not produce the prescription when asked for it, or was carrying stolen oxycontin that was not paid for, then that would be another matter.

Maybe the cops, too, have some misgivings about the policy.

 

Thanks. I have (and read) both Lee Lacocca's and John DeLorean's books, but I might check it out. What I've heard abut it, though, is that it's a different kind of book from the autobiographies Iacocca and Delorean did.

 

i think something might have been lost in translation here.

treating execs like his children doesn't seem very P.C.

 

To an extent, though, that's Japanese culture......corporations are somewhat like families. That's one reason, among several, why Japanese workers are so loyal to their companies.

 

Yup. At least six days a week. Very little time for your real family.

 

Sad part of all this is that this was first woman to raise up the ranks St TMC.

 

I am the same. If one of my reports fails to show up without notice I try to reach out and see if they are in trouble and need any assistance. Others I know would rather use that event as AWOL and try to slap them around.

 

That is a very good point. In a culture where numbers matter more than your relationships with the rest of the people in the company, and you are only one day away from being laid off the moment your company is unable to meet the forecast guidance they provided to the investment market, there is no reason to treat anybody like family.

 

doesn't this boil down to whether she had a prescription or not?