Freelance journalist Hiromichi Ugaya is claiming victory in his legal battle with Japanese chart compiler Oricon.

Oricon -- Japan’s equivalent of Billboard -- and Ugaya reached a settlement at the Tokyo High Court on Aug. 3 in a defamation suit launched by the Tokyo-based magazine. Oricon had sought 50 million yen ($524,754) in damages from Ugaya, claiming that its reputation was hurt by comments questioning the accuracy of its chart-collation methodology that Ugaya made in a magazine article.

Under the court-brokered deal, Oricon abandoned its damages claim against Ugaya, who in turn agreed to give up his counterclaim against the magazine.

Ugaya’s comments were included in a story titled "Are Johnny's stars treated as super VIPs? Honeymoon between Oricon and Johnny's" that was published in the April 2006 edition of Tokyo-based magazine Cyzo. Unusually, Oricon did not sue Cyzo publisher Infobahn nor writer Toshikazu Kobayashi, which led Ugaya to term the suit an example of “SLAPP” -- “strategic lawsuit against public participation” (http://ugaya.com/column/090806kaisetsu_wakai.html).

The “Johnny’s” referred to in the headline is production/management company Johnny’s Jimusho, which wields enormous power in the Japanese music industry.

Oricon also claimed that Ugaya libeled the magazine in a 2003 story he wrote in AERA magazine, but the Tokyo District Court -- which heard the original suit -- ruled that the relevant three-year statute-of-limitations period had expired.

In April 2008 that court reached a ruling that partly upheld Oricon’s argument and ordered Ugaya to pay 1 million yen ($10,495) to the company. Ugaya then appealed to the Tokyo High Court.

In the High Court settlement, Cyzo admitted that the comment was not accurate and that it was published without Ugaya's consent. Cyzo also agreed to pay 5 million yen ($52,475) in compensation to Ugaya and apologize to Oricon for having “misled” readers.

“Under Japanese civil law, abandonment of a civil lawsuit is legally equivalent to a declaration of defeat," said Ugaya in an Aug. 3 statement. He said the 33-month legal battle had caused him a 9-million-yen ($94,455) decrease in income as well as physical and mental fatigue.

"The suit was Oricon's harassment aimed at suppressing freedom of speech,” Ugaya was quoted as saying. “Oricon, by dropping its claim, proved that the suit was unjustified."

Oricon’s comment regarding the settlement was limited to a brief statement on its website (http://www.oricon.jp/index.html) acknowledging that it and Ugaya had agreed to the court-brokered deal.

“We welcome Oricon’s decision to withdraw its action, as it was clear from the outset that the allegations against Ugaya were meaningless,” said Paris-based press-freedom organization Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in a statement on its website (http://rsf.org/High-court-dismisses-music-company.html). RSF noted that Oricon’s decision to drop the action is extremely unusual in Japan.

Oricon’s charts are by far the most popular and widely referenced in Japan, despite the challenge posed to them in recent years by SoundScan Japan, which collates the Billboard Japan charts.

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