Fuji, Kodak Trade Barbs on Business Practices

Even as the U.S. and Japanese governments were making peace overtures Monday on trade, the two nations’ top film manufacturers traded exceptionally bitter charges and accused each other of unethical business behavior.

At a news conference marked by a level of harshness rarely seen in Japan, Minoru Onishi, president of Fuji Photo Film Co., accused Eastman Kodak Co. of basing a high-profile trade complaint against his firm on “complete fabrications.”

A top Kodak official here called Fuji’s charges “garbage.”

Fuji was taking aim at a 300-page Kodak document that describes barriers to foreign access to Japan’s film market. The document recently prompted the Clinton Administration to take action against alleged anti-competitive practices by Fuji.

Kodak’s report “is a piece of fiction that mischaracterizes facts,” Onishi said. “Kodak has violated all the standards of business ethics. . . . It has shamelessly made false allegations against Fuji Film in a self-serving attempt to use political pressure to accomplish what its own lack of managerial effort and failed marketing strategies have not been able to accomplish.”

Fuji released its own document of more than 500 pages rebutting many of Kodak’s specific claims and countercharging that the U.S. firm engages in anti-competitive practices in the United States. A recurring theme is that quotes from Japanese publications used by Kodak to back up its charges are taken out of context.

Ira Wolf, Kodak’s Tokyo-based director of Japan relations, said his company stands by its initial report.