Nikko Denki Seisakusho parked 625 molds on 20 suppliers free, some for 20 years

Nikko Denki Seisakusho Co., Ltd. (株式会社日幸電機製作所), a Setagaya, Tokyo maker of circuit breakers with ¥100 million in capital, lent its molds and wooden casting patterns to subcontractors and let orders lapse — while the suppliers kept the tooling on their own floors. By the JFTC's count, 625 molds and patterns sat with 20 subcontractors, some unpaid for as long as about 20 years, until a November 13, 2025 recommendation under the Subcontract Act.

This case came through the system's quieter entrance: the Small and Medium Enterprise Agency investigated Nikko Denki itself and, on September 29, 2025, its director-general filed a formal measure request (措置請求) asking the Fair Trade Commission to act.

By then the company had already done the arithmetic: between October 28, 2024 and July 20, 2025 it recovered all 625 items and paid ¥4,238,300 in storage compensation agreed with the suppliers. The recommendation locked in the fix — board-resolution confirmation, Subcontract Act training aimed at tooling management, and notification of suppliers — rather than forcing a first payment.

¥4,238,300 in back storage fees paid and all 625 molds and patterns recovered before the JFTC recommendation landed.

Idle tooling had no owner-side cost line, so 'leave it with the supplier' looked free for two decades.

Casting patterns and molds are bulky, low-turnover assets; pushing their storage onto smaller firms spread the burden where protest was least likely.

The company treated warehouse space as an extension of its own balance sheet without pricing it.

Enforcement caught up because the SME Agency now surveys supplier-side complaints and formally routes cases to the JFTC.

A practice held for twenty years is still a debt. Free warehousing of your tooling is a price cut you imposed, and regulators can reprice it retroactively.

Nikko Denki Seisakusho's board must confirm non-repetition and tooling-management training measures, inform affected suppliers, and report back to the JFTC. The recommendation landed the same day as one for Mitsubishi Fuso, whose free mold storage spanned 5,694 tools held by 61 suppliers — evidence the JFTC's cleanup of mold-storage practices across Japanese manufacturing, 21 recommendations since March 2023 by Asahi's count, is still widening.