Fortress Japan is a Japanese company that operates eikaiwa

Eikaiwa

or often shortened to , are English conversation schools, usually privately operated, in Japan. It is a combination of the word and.Although the Japanese public education system mandates that English be taught as part of the curriculum from fifth grade, the focus is generally on English grammar...

 English conversation schools

English language education in Japan

English language education in Japan began as early as 1600 with the initial contacts between the Japanese and Europeans. The for-profit market has experienced a crisis of confidence in recent years following the bankruptcies of the major Nova and GEOS brands....

 under brand

Brand

The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...

s including Global Trinity （Katakana: グローバルトリニティー）. The Consumer Affairs Agency and the Tokyo metropolitan government

Politics of Tokyo

The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is headed by a publicly elected governor and metropolitan assembly. Its administrative structure is similar to that of Japan's other prefectures. The headquarters building is in the ward of Shinjuku...

 shut down the company for six months in February 2010 due to its coercive marketing

Marketing

Marketing is the process used to determine what products or services may be of interest to customers, and the strategy to use in sales, communications and business development. It generates the strategy that underlies sales techniques, business communication, and business developments...

 practices, which included false explanations and harassment

Harassment

Harassment covers a wide range of behaviors of an offensive nature. It is commonly understood as behaviour intended to disturb or upset, and it is characteristically repetitive. In the legal sense, it is intentional behaviour which is found threatening or disturbing...

 -- both illegal under Japanese law

Japanese law

-Historical Developments:Pre-Modern History The early law of Japan was heavily influenced by Chinese law. Little is known about Japanese law prior to the seventh century, when the Ritsuryō was developed and codified. Before Chinese characters were transplanted and adopted by the Japanese, the...

.

Branch history

The first school was opened in Osaka

Osaka

is a city in the Kansai region of Japan's main island of Honshu, a designated city under the Local Autonomy Law, the capital city of Osaka Prefecture and also the biggest part of Keihanshin area, which is represented by three major cities of Japan, Kyoto, Osaka and Kobe...

 in 1986. The next year, Tokyo and Nagoya schools were opened. The Fukuoka-shi branch that opened in 2005 was its first in Southern Japan, and in the next year the Sendai branch began operations in Northern Japan. In July 2009 the Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka branches changed their branding to HER-S (ハーツ).

Sites offline

Both the global-trinity.com and her-s.net websites have been taken down pursuant to the governmental

Government of Japan

The government of Japan is a constitutional monarchy where the power of the Emperor is very limited. As a ceremonial figurehead, he is defined by the 1947 constitution as "the symbol of the state and of the unity of the people". Power is held chiefly by the Prime Minister of Japan and other elected...

 suspension

Suspension (punishment)

Suspension is a form of punishment that people receive for violating rules and regulations.- Workplace :Suspension is a common practice in the workplace for being in violation of an organization's policy...

of operations order.

External links

• Nambu Foreign Workers Caucus English school ordered to close / Court warned Fortress Japan last year over coercive sales practices February 19, 2010
• 山本ケイ 消費者団体が英会話スクール「グローバルトリニティー」運営のフォートレスジャパンに、不当勧誘の中止を申し入れ 2008/06/26
• Press release 消費者庁 ニュースリリース PDF