In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled the way the company calculated its cancellation policies was illegal and ordered Nova Corp. to repay about ¥310,000 to a Tokyo man who received no refund when he canceled his contract.

Faced with mounting debts, Sahashi in July 2007 allegedly diverted nearly ¥320 million from an employment benefit fund to the affiliate’s account.

The money was then supposedly used to reimburse students who had canceled their contracts. Nova officially declared bankruptcy in October 2007 and much of its operation was taken over by Nagoya-based G.Communications.

Sahashi argued he had the employees’ welfare in mind when he used the funds to pay the cancellation fees.

“Use of the money is not a violation of the funds’ purpose. The defendant thought it was money in an account with his name to be used for the welfare of the employees,” Sahashi’s lawyers said in a statement to the court. “Unless the cancellation fees were paid, the company was facing bankruptcy. Because there were no other funds, the money was used to avoid this worst possible case, and to maintain a minimal (amount) of welfare for the employees.”

Sahashi faces not only a lawsuit over the diversion of the employee benefit funds but also a suit by former students seeking ¥16 million in damages.

An attempt by [NUGW Tokyo Nambu sister union] the Osaka-based General Union, which represents many ex-Nova employees, to get prosecutors to indict Sahashi for nonpayment of wages failed last year. But in March, after the union pushed the local labor bureau to get prosecutors to probe their decision, auditors for the prosecutor’s office ruled the initial decision not to charge Sahashi was unjust.

The union hopes Sahashi will be tried separately for nonpayment of wages to 5,000 dismissed employees.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20090602a1.html

According to the indictment, in July 2007, Sahashi conspired with a 50-year-old Nova executive in charge of finance to embezzle the reserve funds of a mutual aid organization for Nova Group employees chaired by Sahashi.

The money was transferred to a bank account of an affiliate company.

The prosecutors said that on the night before the transfer was made, Sahashi had convinced the executive, who was reluctant to take part in the scheme, that repaying the students was a necessity and urged him to spend as much money as possible.

http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/20090602TDY01302.htm

In Japanese, “racial discrimination” is jinshu sabetsu. That is the established term used in official translations of international treaties (such as the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, or CERD) that Japan has signed up to.

However, the Japanese media won’t couch the discussion in these terms. This was visible during the nationwide debate generated by the Otaru onsen case (1999-2005), where public bathhouses refused entry to customers because they didn’t “look Japanese.” If you read the oodles of non-tabloid articles on this case, you’ll see the debate was conducted in milder, misleading language.

For example, it was rendered in terms of gaikokujin sabetsu (discrimination against foreigners). But that’s not the same thing. The people being discriminated against were not all foreign (ahem).

Or else it was depicted as gaiken sabetsu (discrimination by physical appearance). But that’s not “race,” either. Nor is “physical appearance” specifically covered by the CERD.

This term particularly derails the debate. It actually generates sympathy for people afraid of how others look.

http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20090602ad.html