Word out of Japan today is that Tecmo has settled in the case brought on by two employees on behalf of the entire workforce concerning issues of illegal "flexible scheduling" and unpaid overtime. While details of the settlement were not made available as of yet, a brief statement says that an agreement was reached on September 1st and the case will now be settled out of court.

While taking the case outside of court and therefore out of the public eye will allow Tecmo to refrain from admitting to any wrongdoing, it still casts the company in a negative light as the case brought forth by Tomonobu Itagaki moves forward. If the company had nothing to hide they would have likely let this suit go to trial, but their actions suggest that if that had been the case they likely would have lost.

The other reason for settling might have been so the company could clean house ahead of its expected merger with Koei. You can bet the other developer doesn’t want Tecmo’s baggage coming along with it, so a likely condition of the merger is the resolution of outstanding legal issues. We may never know for sure what happened inside Tecmo, but at least now workers are getting paid and the company can move forward with its merger plans. We just hope for the sake of the industry as a whole that the Itagaki situation also resolves itself this quietly and peacefully.