Rembrandt Holdings has announced that employees at the Rembrandt-Style Sapporo were found to have fraudulently received travel subsidies from Hokkaido and Sapporo City, as well as illegally obtained local support coupons.
Employees failed to inform guests about the application of travel support and acquired coupon tickets illegitimately. Moreover, they made fictitious reservations for personal acquisition of coupon tickets. The malpractice was discovered through internal whistleblowing by several employees on July 12, and the involved staff members were dismissed on July 21. The incident was reported to Hokkaido and Sapporo City on July 31.
Procedures are underway to return the full amount of misappropriated subsidy funds and the cost of the local support coupons to Hokkaido and Sapporo City. According to reports, the fraudulent amount is approximately 11 million yen.
