VTuber company behind Hololive warned by Japanese government for violations of subcontractor laws 

The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), run by the Japanese government, issued a warning to Cover Corp for violations of the Subcontract Act. The company has since admitted to delaying payments to contractors and requesting “excessive” revisions of commissioned work. Cover Corp owns the VTuber agency Hololive Production (source: ITmedia). 

According to the JFTC, between April 2022 and December 2023, Cover Corp had contactors perform revisions of commissioned Live2D and 3D models after they had been delivered. Furthermore, the requested changes were not according to initial specifications and were requested for free. This allegedly happened on 243 occasions with 23 different contractors. 

In addition, the company running Hololive failed to pay 29 contractors for commissioned work between July 2010 to February 2012, accumulating an accrued interest of over 1.1 million yen. 

In their guidance letter to the company, the JFTC ordered Cover Corp to promptly pay their contractors the amount equivalent to the cost of the revisions that were performed for free. The company was also asked to prevent recurrence of delayed payments and demands for free revisions. 

In response, Cover Corp has issued an apology to its contractors and all affected parties. The company admits to “considerably inconveniencing” commissioned contractors with excessive revision requests and delayed payments. They have since settled all late payments, including interest, and vow to “continue to make improvements to strengthen our compliance and prevent any recurrence of the aforementioned violations.”