Japan Highway Public Corp. said Thursday it will drop its lawsuit against a senior official whose magazine article helped trigger the dismissal of Haruho Fujii as the entity's president.

Japan Highway filed the libel suit with the Tokyo District Court on July 25 against the official, Sachio Katagiri, publishing firm Bungei Shunju Ltd. and Masayuki Iikubo, the chief editor of the monthly magazine. Fujii was still president of Japan Highway when the suit was brought.

The highway operator sought a total of 30 million yen in damages from the three parties and asked Bungei Shunju to publish a full-page apology for running what it claimed was a defamatory story, written by Katagiri, about Japan Highway and Fujii.

"We concluded that it is no longer necessary to proceed with the lawsuit as a result of Mr. Fujii's dismissal, although this doesn't mean we admit the article is true," a Japan Highway official said.

The entity will not file criminal complaints against Katagiri, the official added.

Japan Highway said it is unclear whether Fujii will withdraw the part of the suit that concerns his damages claim.

As deputy head of the corporation's Shikoku branch, Katagiri, a proponent of drastically reforming the organization, alleged in the July issue of the monthly magazine that Fujii hid a financial report showing Japan Highway had negative net worth.

This raised the ire of Fujii, who was regarded as opposed to sweeping reforms of Japan Highway and was on a collision course with Katagiri.

The latest Japan Highway decision came a week after it officially appointed former businessman turned Diet lawmaker Takeshi Kondo as its new president following the Oct. 24 sacking of Fujii.