A GungHo Online Entertainment shareholder has asked the Puzzle & Dragons company to sue its own chairman, Kazuki Morishita, for ¥356 million plus late-payment damages, GungHo disclosed on 2 November. According to gamebiz, the demand letter, dated 29 October and addressed to GungHo’s statutory auditors, argues that Morishita, president at the time, breached his duty to build an internal control system around a former employee’s fraud. GameBusiness reports that the letter arrived on 30 October. The shareholder is not named.
GungHo says its auditors will examine the letter and that it will promptly disclose whether it files suit. As 4Gamer points out, the breach is the shareholder’s allegation: the disclosure neither announces a lawsuit nor establishes that Morishita is liable. Under Article 847 of Japan’s Companies Act, if the company does not sue within 60 days of such a request, the shareholder who made it may bring a derivative suit on the company’s behalf, as a Monolith Law Office explainer sets out.
The fraud was disclosed in August 2025. GameBusiness reports that a senior employee placed fictitious jobs through an outside work-matching service and kept most of the fees, a loss of about ¥246 million, while separate payments to vendors for work never performed cost about ¥100 million. GungHo’s review found the employee acted alone but cited concentrated authority and weak approval and audit checks; it cut the president’s monthly base pay by 30% for three months.
Morishita, who led development of Puzzle & Dragons, handed the chief executive post to finance chief Kazuya Sakai on 1 February 2026 and became chairman and chief development officer, gamebiz reported in January. That change followed a campaign by activist fund Strategic Capital, whose proposal to dismiss him was rejected at an extraordinary shareholders’ meeting on 24 September 2025, Adnkronos reported.