ライブドア、外国人株主４割に 個人株主は２割に急落 (朝日新聞) - goo ニュース
上記の朝日の記事の＜外資＞に関しての関連性で
参照にする記載をしているのが
英国のTIME。
配信記事
◎
The Times May 13, 2006
Horie 'will not fall on sword'
By Leo Lewis
The former Livedoor boss is set to stun Japan's business world by pleading not guilty to fraud charges
TAKAFUMI HORIE, the 33-year-old maverick businessman at the centre of Tokyo’s most hotly anticipated corporate fraud trial for decades, has one last act of defiance in store. He plans to flout Japanese company convention by pleading not guilty.
Mr Horie, who is facing charges of spreading false information and window-dressing accounts, may also attempt the virtually unheard-of tactic of blaming his senior staff for the scandal that ultimately destroyed Livedoor, the internet company that he founded.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, Mr Horie’s lawyer broke a pre-trial silence to say that his client’s lack of confession and decision to plead not guilty had blind-sided the Tokyo Prosecutor’s office.
Yasuyuki Takai said: “This is a complicated case and the prosecutors simply do not understand it fully. They expected Horie to confess, and now that he has denied all the charges completely the prosecutors are in serious trouble. The Japanese prosecutors’ system is not prepared for a case without a confession.”
Mr Takai is in a unique position to know what the Tokyo Prosecutor’s office is going through, having once headed that department. Four other former Livedoor executives have effectively admitted their guilt in the scandal, but they will be tried separately from Mr Horie. He is reportedly in fairly good health and spirits despite spending 94 days in a police detention centre. The terms of his bail, since he was released two weeks ago, mean that he effectively remains a prisoner in his luxury Tokyo apartment, and cannot communicate in any way with people linked to Livedoor.
Since the scandal erupted, Mr Horie has become a figure of hatred for many Japanese. Members of ultra-nationalist groups have spent most of the past fortnight slowly circling his apartment building in specially modified “sound trucks”, blaring vitriolic messages and threats.
The arrest of Mr Horie caused a vibrant IT company once valued by the market at 800 billion yen (£3.85 billion) to be de-listed and become essentially worthless within the space of a few weeks. The effect of the Livedoor collapse was so explosive that the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s trading systems crashed and the market operated on shortened opening hours for two months.
Mr Horie made his name and earned a reputation as a breaker of Japan’s rigid business conventions — a fact that his lawyers say caused him to be singled out for scrutiny.
One of his boldest moves involved a rare hostile bid for a company that would have given Livedoor control of Japan’s biggest television broadcaster. Yet his greatest contribution to change in Japan may be yet to come. Normally Japanese chief executives would fall on their swords and confess to crimes committed within their companies, Mr Takai said. Mr Horie’s surprise decision to assert his innocence could revolutionise the Japanese justice system overnight and force a big shake-up of the way in which fraud and other finance-related crimes are prosecuted.
“The conviction rate in Japan is high because the prosecutors usually have a confession to help them,” said Mr Takai, who takes a dim view of the prosecutors’ ability to gather hard evidence.
“What Horie is doing may mean that Japanese corporate trials like this focus on who in the company is actually to blame. Maybe this case will restore foreigners’ confidence in Japanese justice,” he added.
The case has broken starkly with tradition, being the first to exploit a new law aimed at speeding up Japan’s long, drawn-out trials. The insider-dealing trial surrounding the Recruit group that began in 1988, for example, took 14 years to reach a verdict.
Under a new law, prosecutors and defence lawyers meet before the trial to establish what areas will be covered and how the evidence will be presented. Mr Takai believes the introduction of that system means the Livedoor trial will be over within six months.
Although Mr Takai is confident that he can secure an acquittal for Mr Horie, he admitted that the death of Hideaki Noguchi, a key figure in the Livedoor case, would be problematic because the dead man’s evidence would have helped his client’s case. Mr Noguchi was a senior figure at a securities house used by Livedoor in many of the deals now viewed by the prosecutors as suspect. His death, recorded by police in Okinawa as suicide, was not accompanied by a coroner’s inquest.
上記の朝日の記事の＜外資＞に関しての関連性で
参照にする記載をしているのが
英国のTIME。
配信記事
◎
The Times May 13, 2006
Horie 'will not fall on sword'
By Leo Lewis
The former Livedoor boss is set to stun Japan's business world by pleading not guilty to fraud charges
TAKAFUMI HORIE, the 33-year-old maverick businessman at the centre of Tokyo’s most hotly anticipated corporate fraud trial for decades, has one last act of defiance in store. He plans to flout Japanese company convention by pleading not guilty.
Mr Horie, who is facing charges of spreading false information and window-dressing accounts, may also attempt the virtually unheard-of tactic of blaming his senior staff for the scandal that ultimately destroyed Livedoor, the internet company that he founded.
In an exclusive interview with The Times, Mr Horie’s lawyer broke a pre-trial silence to say that his client’s lack of confession and decision to plead not guilty had blind-sided the Tokyo Prosecutor’s office.
Yasuyuki Takai said: “This is a complicated case and the prosecutors simply do not understand it fully. They expected Horie to confess, and now that he has denied all the charges completely the prosecutors are in serious trouble. The Japanese prosecutors’ system is not prepared for a case without a confession.”
Mr Takai is in a unique position to know what the Tokyo Prosecutor’s office is going through, having once headed that department. Four other former Livedoor executives have effectively admitted their guilt in the scandal, but they will be tried separately from Mr Horie. He is reportedly in fairly good health and spirits despite spending 94 days in a police detention centre. The terms of his bail, since he was released two weeks ago, mean that he effectively remains a prisoner in his luxury Tokyo apartment, and cannot communicate in any way with people linked to Livedoor.
Since the scandal erupted, Mr Horie has become a figure of hatred for many Japanese. Members of ultra-nationalist groups have spent most of the past fortnight slowly circling his apartment building in specially modified “sound trucks”, blaring vitriolic messages and threats.
The arrest of Mr Horie caused a vibrant IT company once valued by the market at 800 billion yen (£3.85 billion) to be de-listed and become essentially worthless within the space of a few weeks. The effect of the Livedoor collapse was so explosive that the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s trading systems crashed and the market operated on shortened opening hours for two months.
Mr Horie made his name and earned a reputation as a breaker of Japan’s rigid business conventions — a fact that his lawyers say caused him to be singled out for scrutiny.
One of his boldest moves involved a rare hostile bid for a company that would have given Livedoor control of Japan’s biggest television broadcaster. Yet his greatest contribution to change in Japan may be yet to come. Normally Japanese chief executives would fall on their swords and confess to crimes committed within their companies, Mr Takai said. Mr Horie’s surprise decision to assert his innocence could revolutionise the Japanese justice system overnight and force a big shake-up of the way in which fraud and other finance-related crimes are prosecuted.
“The conviction rate in Japan is high because the prosecutors usually have a confession to help them,” said Mr Takai, who takes a dim view of the prosecutors’ ability to gather hard evidence.
“What Horie is doing may mean that Japanese corporate trials like this focus on who in the company is actually to blame. Maybe this case will restore foreigners’ confidence in Japanese justice,” he added.
The case has broken starkly with tradition, being the first to exploit a new law aimed at speeding up Japan’s long, drawn-out trials. The insider-dealing trial surrounding the Recruit group that began in 1988, for example, took 14 years to reach a verdict.
Under a new law, prosecutors and defence lawyers meet before the trial to establish what areas will be covered and how the evidence will be presented. Mr Takai believes the introduction of that system means the Livedoor trial will be over within six months.
Although Mr Takai is confident that he can secure an acquittal for Mr Horie, he admitted that the death of Hideaki Noguchi, a key figure in the Livedoor case, would be problematic because the dead man’s evidence would have helped his client’s case. Mr Noguchi was a senior figure at a securities house used by Livedoor in many of the deals now viewed by the prosecutors as suspect. His death, recorded by police in Okinawa as suicide, was not accompanied by a coroner’s inquest.