Whistle-blower fails in lawsuit against Toyota Motor Vietnam

The jury has rejected the petition by Le Van Tach, who exposed technical faults in Toyota Motor Vietnam (TMV)’s car manufacturing.

In the verdict issued on April 11, the People’s Court in Vinh Phuc Province’s Phuc Yen Township stated that TMV’s discipline to Tach for bothering his employer was in accordance with the current law.

“TMV’s decisions 435 and 436 that resulted in the disciplining of Tach were appropriate to the Labour Law and Government Decree41 on the issue. Tach’s petition to abrogate the decisions was not approved,” Judge Hoang Minh Tuan said.

According to the jury, Tach violated TMV’s labour regulations for bothering the company’s General Director Akito Tachibana by consecutively sending him four mails from May 31 to June 11, 2011.

Tach’s proposal that the company restore his employment rights were also rejected as the court stated that TMV had not violated Tach’s rights.

Tach was ordered to pay all legal costs.

The engineer, however, did not agree with the verdict and planned to appeal against the decision to a higher court.

Earlier, Tach sued the company for unfair treatment and violation of privacy after he discovered technical flaws in the company’s cars, which led to recall of nearly 9,000 vehicles in 2011.

Tach said Tachibana discriminated against him when he suspended him from work and then transferred him to an inferior job after he went public about TMV’s technical faults.

In addition, Tach proposed that Phuc Yen and Vinh Phuc police’s investigative agencies, the Ministry of Public Security and People’s Procuracies at different levels bring the company to court for their actions and violations of his e-mail privacy. This petition was rejected later, with Toyota arguing that the email technically belonged to the company.