"Advertising giant Dentsu again found violating rules on overtime hours", 5 December 2019

Dentsu Inc. said Thursday it had again received a warning from labor authorities over illegal overtime practices.

Two years after being convicted over working practices involving long hours, which had led to the suicide of an employee, the advertising giant was found to have violated labor laws in 2018 by failing to curb the overtime work of some employees. A local labor standard office in Tokyo recommended it correct the situation in September.

Dentsu said it has swiftly settled the relevant issues. “We’ll continue our reforms of our working environment,” ...

...Since 2010, Dentsu has received repeated recommendations from labor authorities to correct its overtime working practices...

...Dentsu has a labor-management agreement that limits monthly overtime work to 45 hours per person. The limit can be extended to 75 hours if employees apply in advance.

In the most recent violation, authorities found several breaches of the rules. In one case, a sales employee worked 156 hours of overtime in a month...