TAKEFUJI CORPORATION   15-1 Nishi-Shinjuku 8-chome,Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 163-8654 Japan April 18, 2002 For release    Immediately Contact Media - Osamu Sasaki, Managing Director and General Manager of Public Relations Tel: 81-3-33658030 Financial Analysts - Shizuo Mizukami, Manager of Investor Relations - Kunio Takayama, Manager of Accounting Dept. Tel: 81-3-33658011 Stock Code No. 8564 - TYOSE London Stock Exchange AVS No. 669388 Lawsuit against Tera Net    We would like to announce that we filed a lawsuit against Tera Net Corporation (President, Takeo Hamada) (hereinafter called Tera Net), demanding 300 million yen for damage compensation before the Tokyo District Court on April 17.    55 Consumers Finance Companies including Takefuji, and 5,889 customers of these companies filed a lawsuit seeking "injunction of providing and disclosing of credit information of each customer" against Japan Data Bank and Tera Net on February 15, 2001 and currently the case is in dispute.    The preparatory pleadings submitted to the court by the defendant alleges "there is suspected of forgery and fraudulent use of private documents in a part of the appointment letter (power of attorney) of plaintiffs". This rumor has intentionally spread through some of mass media before submitting such preparatory pleadings to the public, resulting in the extreme defamation of character and credence of plaintiffs including Takefuji, and this has led to our legal action against Tera Net. Details: 1. Title of the Case : Claim for damage compensation 2. Claiming Amount : 300 million yen 3. Parties Involved : Plaintiff : Takefuji Corporation       Defendant : Tera Net Corporation 4. Grounds for Lawsuit      The defendants, Tera Net, repeatedly committing in the despicable acts (as listed below) damaged Takefuji's reputation and credibility. This has led us bring Tera Net to the court. We can never allow that privacy of customers as plaintiffs has been infringed by the defendant in the midst of a lawsuit for protection of customer's privacy. This case holds a very important implication as the issues surrounding personal information protection law drawing much public attention in these days.   1) Fabrication of fact        The preparatory pleadings submitted by the defendant to the court predicated that the appointment letter (power of attorney) prepared by the plaintiff, was fabricated, and furthermore, set forth groundless references which damaged plaintiff's character and credence.   2) Unjustifiable and careless investigation        According to our investigation, it became clear that they had conducted unjustifiable and careless investigation which trampled down the privacy of the customers. All of a sudden, not through a regular procedure under lawsuit, representatives of defendant visited places of work and home of at least seven of the customers as complainant to present a series of question and showed the documents considered to be forged. A defendant Tera Net is the private company which seeks profit making and deals in individual credit information. We believe that the Tera Net has to be severely condemned for their commercial-oriented behavior to which they should take all possible measures to protect customers' private information rather than infringes on it.   3) Spread of false contents        It is asserted that the defendant might intentionally leak such false contents as indicated on the preparatory pleadings to two or more newspaper publishing companies which resulted in wide circulation.    In addition to this case, we are planning to file castigation claim seeking disciplinary punishment based on violation to the professional ethics regulation against representative lawyer of Tera Net.   [Information about Tera Net]    Tera Net Corporation (hereinafter called "Tera Net") is a completely new organization for credit information, which started its operation in December 2000 in spite of much opposition from consumer finance companies or many customers. The official purpose of the establishment is to interchange the precious customer's credit information previously shared only among the consumer finance industry sectors, such as retailer affiliated or bank affiliated credit card companies and bank affiliate consumer finance companies, in order to put the brakes on the pretext of multiple-indebtedness problem. However, the actual business is dealing in a customer's credit information. Many problems were pointed out before beginning of its operation. *A breach of covenant that prohibits information exchange by disclosing to the unauthorized party *A customer's prior consent had not been obtained    Tera Net started its operation forcibly in the form of disregarding unsolved problems above.    Under such circumstances, on Feb.15, 2001 when it matured, Takefuji Corporation filed a lawsuit before the Tokyo District Court against Tera Net and Japan Data Bank Co., Ltd. which decided to exchange customer information with Tera Net seeking "injunction of providing and disclosing of customer credit information", the said lawsuit being presented jointly with 54 consumer finance companies and 5,889 customers of them and currently the case is in dispute as a class suit. Back by Takefuji co.