Former Toyota Motor Corp executive Julie Hamp was freed from police custody yesterday after Tokyo prosecutors said they would not indict her on suspicion of illegally importing the painkiller Oxycodone into Japan.
Hamp, a US citizen who became Toyota’s chief communications officer and first female managing officer in April, had been held since her June 18 arrest. She resigned from the world’s largest automaker last week.
An official at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office told reporters that prosecutors had taken into account the “social penalty” she had already incurred with her resignation from Toyota.
Local media said on Tuesday that Hamp was unlikely to be charged because prosecutors judged there was little criminal intent in the case, which arose when her father mailed her the pills to alleviate knee pain. The highly addictive Oxycodone pills, found in a small parcel labeled “necklaces,” had been placed in packets or buried at the bottom of the box, media reported.
Yesterday was the last day that Hamp, 55, could be held without formal charges.
A former General Motors Co and PepsiCo Inc executive, Hamp was promoted to her executive post at Toyota in April as part of a drive to diversify Toyota’s male-dominated, mostly Japanese lineup of senior management. She joined Toyota’s North American unit in 2012 and had just relocated to Tokyo last month.
Toyota in a statement apologized for the incident, repeating that it remained committed to “putting the right people in the right places” regardless of nationality or gender.
It added that senior managing officer Shigeru Hayakawa had been appointed to replace Hamp as chief communications officer.
Hayakawa began in the role on Monday, it said.
Oxycodone is a prescription drug in both the US and Japan. Bringing it into Japan requires prior approval from the Japanese government and it must be carried by the individual.
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Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
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