I-ne bought a ¥1.8bn trademark from a firm its own president had helped found

I-ne, the Osaka company behind BOTANIST and YOLU, paid ¥1.8bn in mid-2022 for the Wrink Fade trademark from a cosmetics firm called Right Here. Four years later, in February 2026, it delayed its full-year results because the seller might have been its own consolidated subsidiary or related party — which would have made the price and the missing disclosures a governance breach. A special investigation committee of outside lawyers and accountants took over.

The committee's report, published in April 2026, confirmed Right Here had been a related party: president Taihei Ohnishi was deeply involved in founding and running it and had lent it money personally. Management had also given factually false explanations to the board of directors, the audit committee and the accounting auditor, and executives deleted electronic evidence once the question surfaced. I-ne had to restate related-party notes in previously filed securities reports, and its annual results missed the 50-day disclosure deadline.

The consequences stacked up. Tokyo Stock Exchange found the oath I-ne swore when it moved to the Prime market in September 2023 — that its filings were true — had been violated while management knew the facts, and put it under a one-year re-examination grace period with a ¥33.6M contract penalty. In June 2026 the securities watchdog recommended surcharges of ¥6M on the company and ¥42.05M on a director who had sold about ¥900M of his shares while aware a related trademark purchase was missing from the annual report.

¥33.6M TSE penalty plus surcharges of ¥6M (firm) and ¥42M (director); FY25 net fell 29%; one-year listing grace period

The related-party check was gamed, not answered: Right Here's substance — the president's role in founding it, his personal loans — was knowable, but nobody asked who really owned the seller.

Once questioned, the instinct was to manage the story: false explanations to the board, audit committee and auditor turned an accounting correction into a credibility crisis.

Deleting evidence after the issue surfaced converted a restatement into a delisting-grade failure; the exchange tied it to Prime-market 'soundness of management' criteria.

Intangibles are where related-party deals hide best: a trademark has no market price, so an inflated ¥1.8bn is nearly invisible in a ¥49bn-revenue company.

Related-party checks ask who truly stands behind a counterparty, not who signs its papers. Managing the story once questioned — false answers, deleted files — turns accounting into a listing crisis.

I-ne stayed listed but entered a re-examination grace period running to June 18, 2027. FY12/2025 results, finally published in May 2026, showed revenue up 8.8% to ¥48.98bn but net profit down 28.9% to ¥2.1bn. The company corrected the related-party notes in past filings, guided FY2026 to ¥52-54bn revenue with about ¥3bn of strategic investment, and kept selling Wrinkfade products. The director facing the ¥42.05M surcharge traded on the non-disclosure, and criminal or further regulatory follow-up remained open.