Is this legal for a company to ask a new employee to sign?

15 comments

1. Yes, it is legal. It is also legal for your friend to not submit it, but it can give the company the legal grounds to rescind their offer.

2. It is legal. The law was amended a few years ago to require that the maximum amount of compensation be specified in the contract.

3. I wouldn’t sign it… Legal scam.

4. Huge red flag. She should just say it is not possible to get it signed. It is a shitty thing to ask an employee to sign and even shittier for the person to try and find a guarantor.
   Good companies do not require this.

5. This is to set up what’s called a 連帯保証人. Is your friend quite young?

6. Do they accept if the guarantor is non-Japanese and live in another country?

   If so she can have Mr. John Smith sign it lol.

7. Sentences at the top are missing pieces so it may have been copied wrong? It says the signer guarantees that the employed will follow the company’s rules “etc”, and if they don’t, or cause any losses or damages, or any “trouble” that the signer guarantees up to 5 million yen for a period of 5 years. In my opinion it’s legal but too onerous and really fuzzy, allowing the hiring co to cast anything as a violation. By the way they don’t even use a legal term for employee, rather using “person entering the company” so it feels like the person would not be protected at all. It doesn’t read like anything a normal, ethical company would write.

8. I asked John Doe to sign mine. He was delighted to help.

9. Can’t comment on the legality but whoa this would make me hesitate to sign up for the job. If it were me signing, I’d consider taking the risk.

   But to have my guarantor sign it? I’d have anxiety about making them sign for such a burden. Talk about “you better not cause meiwaku” to the extreme.

   Even if it’s legal, I do wonder how much of it would be enforceable. What kind of job would ask you to sign for these things? Even in my Eikaiwa job, I never had to sign something like this.

10. It’s legal to ask; it’s legal to sign or refuse to sign…

    And none of it guarantees that these pledge would actually stand up in court.

    There’s an important distinction between a private individual signing such document and a company. When a company enters a contract, it’s mostly enforceable up to the limited liability. When an individual enters a contract, the court may find that they were coerced into it, that certain liabilities are invalid, etc. You could get a lawyer check this out.

11. It’s legal for a company to ask that. The provisions themselves are indeed illegal – specifically, employers are not allowed to set up predetermined indemnity (the 5 mil sum in this case) against employees. In this sense, your friend is safe – even if the company tries to make demands, she can ignore them and if they’re stupid enough to go to court over that, they will lose.

    However, as others have said, it’s a huge red flag. She should look for a different company immediately.

12. What kind of job is this person doing that requires a guarantor to make sure that they’re actually… doing their job? And upwards to 5,000,000 in damages can be put on you if she screws up? What the hell?

13. This is legal. But, I would never sign it.

    Check no.4 which says “The compensation limit associated with this warranty is 5,000,000 yen”.

    I’ve never seen something like this but I know exists, this is a huge red flag as most legit companies don’t require such thing.

14. Isn’t this the kind of thing your parents sign when you’re a fresh grad entering the start of your salaryman life? Typical and legal and also bullshit and if you have the choice run away otherwise welcome to Japan Inc?

15. TIL that this is a red flag. (￣O￣) It’s common enough that apparently some guarantor companies also cover this.

    But, yes, it is legal.