What to Do on the Day Your Company Receives a Complaint, and Initial Steps Before the Answer Deadline

Hello, I'm Noriaki Asato, Representative Attorney at LegalAgent.

When a complaint arrives from a court, the first thing to check is the deadline for submitting the written answer stated in the enclosed documents. This deadline is a date the court sets for each individual case, and it will not wait for your company to finish preparing its rebuttal. If you postpone your response, you may lose the opportunity to rebut, so it is most important to take initial action on the very day the documents arrive.

Receiving a Complaint by Special Service

Documents such as complaints sent by a court to a company follow a different service procedure from ordinary mail. Service of paper documents uses "special service" under Article 49 of the Postal Act, and in accordance with the methods prescribed in Article 100, Paragraph 1 and Articles 103 to 106 of the Code of Civil Procedure, a Japan Post carrier hands the documents to the addressee and keeps a record proving receipt. Unlike ordinary mail, which can simply be dropped into a mailbox, a key feature is that exactly when and by whom the documents were received is recorded.

Where a company is the addressee, service is in principle made at the representative's address or the location of the head office, but under Article 106 of the Code of Civil Procedure, delivery may also be accepted by an employee or other worker, such as a receptionist, who has reasonable discretion. A situation that tends to arise here is that the reception desk or general affairs department receives the documents, leaves them on a desk as "mail from the court," and days pass without the representative opening them. Legally, service may take effect at the moment a person with lawful authority to receive the documents receives them, even if the representative has not actually read the content. What is required upon receipt is that the receiving department does not hold on to the documents by itself but delivers them immediately to management and the person in charge of legal affairs.

In addition, from May 21, 2026, service through the court's online system is also available in eligible civil lawsuits. In addition to paper mail, after confirming the filing date and transitional measures, you also need to keep in view whether a notification has been filed under Article 109-2 of the Code of Civil Procedure and the management of electronic notices in accordance with guidance from the court. Under system service, service takes effect at the earlier of the day on which one week has passed since the notice was sent or the day on which the document was viewed or recorded. There is also a provision under which any period during which viewing or recording was impossible for reasons not attributable to the person is not counted in the one week (Article 109-3 of the Code of Civil Procedure). A management system that does not rely solely on confirming receipt of emails is therefore a prerequisite.

The Answer Deadline and the First Oral Argument Date

The envelope sent with the complaint contains a "Summons for Oral Argument Date and Demand for Written Answer." It states the date and time of the first oral argument and the specific date by which the written answer must be submitted to the court. The written answer is the first document that formally sets out the company's position and arguments in response to the relief sought and the cause of action stated in the complaint.

The answer deadline is not prescribed by law as a uniform number of days from receipt (for example, 30 days later); it is designated individually by the court or the division in charge. You must therefore read the date stated in the documents you received accurately. Also note that the answer deadline is usually set before the first oral argument date, so it is not enough to have the answer ready by the day of the first hearing.

In practice, when preparing the written answer, you clearly distinguish between the "answer to the relief sought," that is, whether you ask the court to dismiss the plaintiff's claim (a motion to dismiss the claim on the merits) or accept it, and the "admission or denial of the cause of action," which sorts the facts in the complaint into those admitted, denied, or not known. What requires particular care here is not confusing the admission of individual facts with "acknowledgment of the claim," which accepts the plaintiff's claim itself in its entirety. If you submit a document to the court stating that you acknowledge the claim, the court may deem the acknowledgment to have been stated even if you are absent. Once an acknowledgment is recorded in the designated file as an electronic record, it has the same effect as a final and binding judgment (Articles 266 and 267 of the Code of Civil Procedure). You must avoid the practice of carelessly filling in the blanks or checkboxes of a form and submitting it without sufficiently confirming the facts.

Risks of Failing to Submit an Answer and Failing to Appear

If the company does not submit a proper written answer and does not appear at the first oral argument date, it is placed in an extremely disadvantageous position. As stated expressly in the court's guidance, if you fail to submit an answer and are absent from the hearing, a judgment fully granting the plaintiff's claim may be rendered.

The basis for this is the system of "constructive admission" under Article 159 of the Code of Civil Procedure. If the defendant does not make clear at the oral argument date that it disputes the facts alleged by the plaintiff, it is deemed to have admitted those facts. At the first oral argument date a party is to attend, a written answer submitted in advance may be deemed to have been stated (Article 158 of the Code of Civil Procedure), but this presupposes that a proper written answer has been submitted. If you are absent without submitting an answer, the facts you did not dispute are deemed admitted, which may lead to a judgment granting the claim. There are exceptions, however, such as where it is recognized from the entire import of the oral argument that the facts are disputed, or where the summons was served by publication. Issues arising where the contract contains provisions on jurisdiction or governing law are organized in What Are Governing Law, Agreed Jurisdiction, and Arbitration Clauses? How to Design the Rules for Disputes in Your Contracts.

It is dangerous to decide, because you are negotiating with the other side, that "there is a prospect of resolving this through discussion, so we will wait and see regarding the court date." Even if you continue behind-the-scenes discussions with the plaintiff, you need to submit a written answer to the court within the deadline and formally indicate your intention to dispute the claim. Neglecting the legal procedure can produce a result that is substantively the same as fully accepting the other side's arguments.

Confirming the Facts Internally and Preserving Related Materials

When a complaint arrives, in parallel with drafting the written answer, promptly proceed to confirm the facts within the company and preserve the materials. The cause of action in the complaint describes, from the plaintiff's point of view, matters such as how the contract came to be concluded, the status of performance, the course of the dispute, and the alleged damage. On the company's side, you verify whether those allegations match the objective facts, checking them against the primary materials at hand.

Confirm the terms of the contract using the contract, purchase orders and acknowledgments, and specifications. For the status of performance and payment, cross-check delivery notes, acceptance certificates, and invoices against deposit and withdrawal records. Also secure emails and chat histories between the people in charge, as well as internal approval documents, as materials showing how agreements and decisions came about. For electronic data, it is essential to preserve the originals with their metadata, such as creation dates and transmission logs, intact, and never to alter or delete them. As litigation drags on, materials tend to become scattered and people in charge tend to be transferred, so if you compile copies of the relevant materials in chronological order at the time of receipt and list where the originals are and who manages them, subsequent allegations and proof will proceed smoothly.

At the same time, interview the people who were involved in the transaction at the time at an early stage. People's memories become vague over time, and you should also anticipate situations in which you can no longer hear from someone because they have left the company or taken leave. It is effective to hear, in the person's own words, when and with whom they had what discussions with the other side and how the contract terms and agreed matters changed, and to make notes of points that conflict with the plaintiff's allegations. These interview records become an important foundation not only for the written answer but also for preparing the briefs and evidence descriptions submitted later.

When to Consult an Attorney and What to Bring

In a case where a complaint has arrived, the basic rule is to consult an attorney immediately after receipt. This is because confirming the facts, settling the policy on admissions and denials, and building the outline of the rebuttal by the deadline takes a considerable amount of time. In district court litigation, there is the principle of representation by attorneys (Article 54 of the Code of Civil Procedure), and except as provided by law, persons other than attorneys cannot appear in court as representatives. A representative director with authority of representation can personally conduct the litigation on behalf of the company (Article 37 of the Code of Civil Procedure), but ordinary employees cannot act as representatives, and there are practical limits to handling specialized litigation procedures within the company alone.

When consulting an attorney, bring the original (or a copy) of the complaint you received together with the enclosed summons and demand for written answer as a set. In addition, if you prepare the contracts and transaction history relating to the cause of action and a chronological list of communications between the people in charge, you can begin identifying the specific issues in dispute from the very first meeting. Also mention any missing materials or materials whose location is unknown, and decide at the meeting who will carry out the additional checks.

Trying to investigate the facts completely within the company before consulting tends instead to result in a rushed response right before the deadline. Proceeding with the fact-finding itself in consultation with an attorney is likely to increase the chances of preparing, within the deadline, a written answer that accurately narrows down the issues. Even if it is difficult to submit by the deadline for unavoidable reasons, inform the court of the circumstances early and confirm how the deadline and hearing date will be handled. Until you can confirm a change, continue preparing on the assumption of the original deadline. In cases where the cause of action is a breach of contractual obligations, the approach to initial response explained in What Is a Contract Breach? How It Differs from Nonperformance of Obligations and Initial Response for Corporate Legal Teams can be applied as is.

What to Do on the Day of Receipt and How to Proceed with the Initial Response

The work to be done on the day you receive a complaint is to immediately share the full set of documents with management and the person in charge of legal affairs and to fix the answer deadline and the first oral argument date. If you prepare a memo summarizing the case number, the plaintiff's name, the relief sought, and the outline of the cause of action stated in the complaint, information can be shared smoothly among the people involved in the company and with the attorney.

Within the week of receipt, proceed to gather the contract documents and communication records relating to the cause of action, and begin interviewing the people involved at the time. Then, working backward from the answer deadline, schedule a meeting with an attorney and begin considering whether to retain counsel and what approach to take; this is the practical order. If you intend to dispute the claim, make it your top priority to state that intention and your admissions and denials of the facts clearly in the written answer, and to deliver it to the court by the designated deadline.

We handle litigation itself under Litigation and Dispute Resolution. If you would like to review your framework for contract-related consultations in parallel with your internal response, please also see our Legal Outsourcing page, which provides continuous support, starting from the initial response, for companies without dedicated legal staff.