Shinsuke Shimada loses suit against Shukan Gendai over gangster coverage

TOKYO (TR) – The Tokyo District Court on Tuesday ruled against former television celebrity Shinsuke Shimada and his agency in a suit filed last year against publisher Kodansha for libel, reports the Sankei Shimbun (Oct. 30).

Agency Yoshimoto Kogyo and the 56-year-old Shimada sought 165 million yen in damages for an article about the former entertainer’s associations with organized crime that appeared in the October 15, 2011 issue of weekly tabloid Shukan Gendai under the headline that read: “Shimada, you are a gangster.”

One claim within the article was that Shimada utilized organized crime members to negotiate real estate transactions.

“The content of the report has high credibility,” said presiding judge Tomonari Honda in offering an explanation for the rejection of the suit by Shimada.


http://www.tokyoreporter.com/2012/10/31/shinsuke-shimada-loses-suit-against-shukan-gendai-over-gangster-coverage/

Yakuza under siege from new zone laws

JAPAN'S mafia - already in turmoil because of strict new local laws - now face the prospect of arrest for even minor offences under new nationwide anti-mob legislation.

The laws came into force yesterday against a backdrop of ongoing violence from members of some yakuza syndicates and embarrassing headlines after a minister in the national government was linked to a leading crime group.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/yakuza-under-siege-from-new-zone-laws/story-e6frg6so-1226506953622

Google Refuses Court Orders to take down defamatory auto complete search results

The distress of people who are labeled as criminals by the autocomplete function of Internet search engine Google is likely to continue for some time, in light of recent developments in their lawsuits against the company.

U.S. search engine giant Google Inc. has refused requests to stop displaying search results that appear to link potentially innocent people to criminal offenses, despite a spate of lawsuits in the Tokyo District Court seeking to have the firm take down misleading results.

Google, which has not abided by a provisional disposition ruling by the Tokyo District Court to suspend displaying such results, intends to fight the cases in court.

The key issue at hand is the "Google Suggest" function, which automatically displays popular searches related to original queries typed into the Google search bar.

Two plaintiffs have said that upon typing their names into the search bar, the suggest function displayed their names along with terms implicating them in crimes.

For one plaintiff, clicking on the suggested terms brings up a number of websites that indicate he has participated in crimes. One such website wrote, "He belongs to an organization that committed assault, which he took part in."

The plaintiff said a company offered him a job, but later withdrew after seeing such websites. He demanded Google stop displaying such search results, but the search engine company refused to do so.

In March, the court issued a provisional disposition to Google to suspend displaying such search results. The firm ignored the ruling, and afterward, the man filed a lawsuit against Google.

Another man filed a suit against Google in September without applying for a provisional disposition.

Google intends to contest the suits in court, saying that "the suggest function and search results do not constitute defamation of character."

Google's assertion is derived from a series of precedents that state Internet search service providers do not assume responsibility for defamation by lawless websites.

In two cases against Yahoo Inc., the Tokyo District Court ruled: "The search service provider did not manage the websites. Easy regulation could also impede the public's right to information." The cases were decided in favor of Yahoo.

Google has submitted the ruling as evidence to the court, saying the requests to suspend search results do not make sense.

To remove libelous postings on the Internet, people can demand website administrators delete them, or file a suit against the original poster by demanding Internet service providers disclose that person's information.

However, it is almost impossible for an individual to deal with hundreds of posts.

Even if the court approves the requests, if Google refuses to comply, there is no other option but to seek a compulsory execution through a court in California, where Google is located. However, this would take additional time and money.

"An in-depth judgment by a court will be required to prevent human rights violations. We must create a procedure in which the [Tokyo District Court] rulings will also be effective with foreign companies," said Yoji Ochiai, a lawyer and former public prosecutor who handled the Yahoo lawsuit.

"Once we are labeled [as a wrongdoer] on the Internet, we can't return to society. It's just like receiving a life sentence," said a 40-year-old man.

The man was arrested on suspicion of fraud and sentenced to 28 months in prison in 2003.

His criminal past still haunts him as his offense was posted on the Internet after his release.

He noticed that soon after he was discharged, blogs and Internet message boards popped up exposing his criminal background. Such sites are displayed whenever he searches for his name on the Internet.

He sent his resume to more than 10 companies, but was unanimously turned down.

"When I meet people for the first time, I'm always so afraid of what they're thinking about me," he said.

After discovering that there are lawyers who help to delete such information from the Internet, he arranged to meet one in July last year. The lawyer helped remove postings from six message boards and blogs. But the process resembled a game of whack-a-mole as site after site kept popping up as soon as one was deleted.

Google Suggest is one of the most annoying functions for him, he said.

If people type only his name in a search bar, websites exposing his past are not immediately displayed. But if people type in his name with the word "fraud," Google Suggest instantly brings up his criminal past.

"The crime I committed was serious. But I don't know why I have to keep facing sanctions for such a long time after being released from prison," he said. "I think there may be some people who cannot get jobs, which may drive them to commit a criminal acts again."

When requesting a site to be taken down, the usual procedure is to send a letter or an e-mail to the site's administrator. However, obtaining such contact information is not easy.

"If [search engine providers] handled the matter, this would be the quickest way to limit the damage," said lawyer Tomohiro Kanda, who works to delete more than 100 websites ever year.


http://www.yomiuri.co.jp/dy/national/T121019003745.htm

Panasonic Launches Green City Project in Fujisawa

The Japanese electronics giant heads up a coalition of investors and other companies to erect a planned green district in the city of Fujisawa. The Fujisawa Sustainable Smart Town will consist of a targeted 1,000 homes spread over 19 hectares. The core of the city sits on land once occupied by a factory Panasonic (then Matsushita) used to produce black and white TVs and refrigerators.

Panasonic and PanaHome, a subsidiary concentrating on residential construction, will build the homes as well as equip them with networking and electronic devices. Partners include Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, which is developing “eco” mortgages and financing to allow residents to get solar systems put on their roofs through American-style “solar-as-a-service” contracts. Similarly, Orix will help develop car, scooter and bike sharing networks for the area.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkanellos/2012/10/09/panasonics-next-product-a-small-town/

Orix other activities -

Cargill and ORIX in Yakuza Love Hotel Scandal

Ministers Falling Due to Yakuza Ties

It was reported last week that the newly appointed Minister of Justice Keishu Tanaka (Democratic Party of Japan) had strong ties to the Japanese mafia. This Thursday, Japan’s respected weekly news magazine, Shukan Bunshun, ran an article on how Japan’s Minister of Finance Koriki Jojima, was supported by a yakuza front company during his election campaign. Minister Tanaka is expected to resign Friday (Japan time). If he does, he’ll be the second Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) appointed cabinet minister since 2009 to resign after exposure of yakuza ties. Not a good thing for the DPJ, which came to power as “the clean party.”

Last Thursday the weekly magazine Shukan Shincho was the first to write that Minister Tanaka had long running ties to the Inagawa-kai. The Inagawa-kai, Japan’s third-largest crime group, was founded as Inagawa-Kogyo circa 1948 and their current headquarters are across the street from the Ritz Carlton Tokyo; they have 10,000 members. According to the police, since 2007 the group has been under the umbrella of the Yamaguchi-gumi, the largest yakuza group in the country, with 39,000 members. Kazuo Uchibori, the leader of the Inagawa-kai, was arrested this month on money-laundering charges. The Tokyo Prosecutor’s Office (TPO) has not yet decided whether to prosecute him. The TPO is also part of the Ministry of Justice, headed by Mr. Tanaka.

The Shincho article alleges Tanaka has long relied on the support of the Inagawa-kai in his political and business dealings and had participated in many Inagawa-kai events—including serving as a matchmaker (仲人, nakoudo) at the wedding of an underboss. The piece also states that the Inagawa-kai suppressed scandalous rumors about Tanaka’s life, involving a tawdry love affair. The underboss responsible for handling the negative PR matters allegedly told would-be extortionists, “Tanaka was the matchmaker at my wedding. Save my face—forgive and forget about it.”

The Daily Beast spoke with Inagawa-kai members and police officers from Kanagawa Prefecture who confirmed that Tanaka did indeed have strong ties to the Inagawa-kai, until at least two years ago.

Tanaka has admitted to attending Inagawa-kai events in the past, including the wedding, but has denied the rest of the allegations.

Sen. Shoji Nishida who has investigated and written about the ties of some DPJ members to the mob in WILL magazine (November 2011) says, “Tanaka is the 4th DPJ-coalition-appointed minister with yakuza ties. I wonder if they even screen the people they put in cabinet positions. The minister of Justice is supposed to be the watchdog of the law, not a matchmaker for the yakuza. Putting a yakuza associate in charge of Japan’s criminal-justice system ... that’s outrageous. Now I can understand why the Yamaguchi-gumi endorsed their party.”

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/10/18/japan-s-justice-minister-to-resign-over-yakuza-ties.html

Yakuza Bosses Found Liable for Damages for Civilian Killing

These days the price of a standard civilian hit-job can run as high as $2 million. That’s not the price to get the job done―that’s the price if one of your underlings gets caught. The whole inflationary spiral started with one dumb yakuza stiffing McDonald’s on the price of a cheeseburger in Kyoto a few years ago.

The Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest organized crime group with 39,000 members and their notorious former underboss Tadamasa Goto (at left, from a 2005 video of a Yamaguchi-gumi celebration) are expected to reach a settlement this month with the family of a civilian killed in 2006. The surviving family members, represented by a group of 25 lawyers, filed the lawsuit last month, asking for ¥187 million in damages, or $2.4 million.

A potential key witness to the murder was extradited from Thailand on Thursday and arrested on the plane back to Japan―on charges of driving without a license―by Tokyo Metropolitan Police Department detectives, who were waiting on the plane. The police also plan to question him about the killing and, of course, his lack of respect for Japan’s rules of the roads.

The arrest has made all parties involved with the murder anxious to sweep the case under the table. Goto, former head of the disbanded Yamaguchi-gumi Goto-gumi, who has never faced any criminal charges for ordering the hit, is desperate to avoid being tried in civil court, and said to be willing to cut a deal. However, it's the current “CEO” of the Yamaguchi-gumi, Shinobu Tsukasa shown at right, who has the most to lose. At the time of the murder, he was in jail on gun possession charges, had no knowledge of the plan, and did not approve it, is not very happy to be cleaning up the mess. He doesn’t want to pay for a crime he didn’t commit or condone. Naturally. The whole thing is bad for business and terrible PR. It really damages the Yamaguchi-gumi corporate brand. And if the lawsuit actually goes to court, it could be a very bad legal precedent for “Yakuza Inc.”

According to those involved with the case and police sources, in 2006 Kazuo Nozaki, a real estate agent, was in a legal dispute with a Goto-gumi front company over the property rights to a building worth ¥2 billion ($26,000,000) in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo. On March 5 of that year, three members of the Goto-gumi waited for Nozaki to walk down a street in Tokyo’s upscale Kita-Aoyama area, and then one allegedly stabbed him to death with a kitchen knife. Of the three assailants, only two have been caught; criminal charges of ordering the hit were never filed against Goto.

The first hearing in the civil suit is tentatively scheduled for this month but sources on both sides say a settlement for the full amount is already being proffered by the Yamaguchi-gumi. A Yamaguchi-gumi middle manager said, “We don’t want this case to go to court. It could set a bad precedent. If this lawsuit were Apple versus Samsung, we’d be Samsung.”

It is an unusual lawsuit. Police sources say it represents the first time Japanese yakuza bosses have been sued for crimes pre-dating the 2008 revisions to the Organized Crime Countermeasures Law (暴力団対策法) which made it possible to hold organized crime bosses responsible for the actions of their underlings in civil court, by essentially recognizing yakuza groups as corporations.


http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2012/09/its-not-easy-being-yakuza-boss/57384/

Cargill and ORIX in Yakuza Love Hotel Scandal

日本語訳 - 

NYT記事日本語訳 カーギル, カーバルの「ラブホテル」の売却を巡る対立

There's a youtube account which has some dramatic footage of what went down - 
http://www.youtube.com/user/katotomoyasuorix/videos?view=0

Further videos recording the interaction between Kato and ORIX staff, the Police and operational staff at the hotels -

http://i.youku.com/u/id_UNTMwNTc3NDgw

Not the first time Cargill has had relations with the yakuza.
http://www.usnews.com/usnews/biztech/articles/980413/archive_003691_2.htm

Cargill has had problems with Asian real estate investment in the past as well it seems-
Lawsuit Accuses Cargill of Bribery In Thai Venture
For those without access past the paywall -
www.citizenstrade.org/ctc/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/wsj_cargillbribery_may2004.pdf

 

Some background (Japanese) on the arrest of Kato's employees in 2008 for breaching laws regarding the sex business -   http://tokumei10.blogspot.com.au/2008/04/blog-post_15.html

KAWAGOE, Japan — Several years ago, an investment subsidiary of the agricultural giant Cargill bought a group of so-called love hotels, which typically rent rooms by the hour, including the neon-lit Hotel Shine in this sprawling Tokyo suburb.

 Though many industry analysts say love hotels in Japan are a good cash flow business — catering to young married couples living with family, as well as to philanderers, prostitutes and even penny-pinching tourists — the Cargill subsidiary was disappointed with its results. The unit, CarVal Investors, sold the 10 properties last week for about $20 million, far less than the $60 million it paid for them in 2004 and 2005.

It might have been just another fire sale. After all, many American funds invested in distressed properties at the height of Japan’s economic woes without success.

But CarVal is now under fire from former employees and business partners in part because of the tough tactics of the new owner: an affiliate of a Japanese developer, the Kato Pleasure Group. Immediately after closing the sale on Thursday, the buyer dispatched groups of black-suited men to force out hotel workers and even hotel guests, barricading the entrances with wooden fences.

About 300 hotel workers have been left in the lurch. They are planning a rally outside Cargill’s Tokyo offices this week to protest their treatment. Two executives who managed the hotels under contract during CarVal’s ownership have refused to leave and remain inside Hotel Shine — a standoff that has drawn the attention of the local police.

The most vocal opponent of the sale, however, is CarVal’s former partner, Alchemy, which had a contract to manage the hotels. In registered letters, filed in court, Alchemy contends that CarVal violated business agreements by selling the properties before their contract was up in October 2014.

In submissions to both the local Tokyo and Saitama Metropolitan Police, Alchemy also contends that Kato Pleasure has ties to Japan’s criminal underground and that CarVal ignored repeated warnings — backed up by outside research — not to go through with the sale.

“Our complaint to CarVal is that they ignored credible advice that they were dealing with a suspected organized crime entity,” said Miro Mijatovic, Alchemy’s chief executive.

CarVal says Alchemy’s accusations are baseless. Kato Pleasure also denies that it has criminal links, but it provided little response to questions posed to a spokesman at its Tokyo headquarters and to company representatives at Hotel Shine. The new owner of the hotels is Plus Ten Mind, a company affiliated with Kato Pleasure that shares the same chief executive.

Ann Folkman, a managing director at CarVal, said there were sound reasons to do business in the hotels. “While leisure hotels may sound salacious, they are a legitimate and longstanding industry that caters to the privacy needs of young Japanese adults, who frequently live with their parents or in company-provided housing,” Ms. Folkman wrote in an e-mail. “As with many of the hotels we have invested in across the world, the investment strategy was to run a compliant business, create sufficient scale and operational regularity and then exit to a buyer who could see the value of the business.”

CarVal’s exit came shortly after 3 p.m. on Thursday, when groups of men who said they were affiliated with Kato Pleasure made a coordinated sweep of the hotels, forcing out the staff, emptying hotel rooms of frightened guests, putting up makeshift fences and changing the locks in preparation to install Kato’s own management and workers.

Takashi Hayashi, the chief executive of Urban Resorts, a unit of Alchemy contracted to run the hotels’ daily operations, who has refused to leave Hotel Shine, seemed shaken as he spoke to a reporter through a tall fence on Saturday. He was flanked by two men who he said worked for Kato Pleasure, who refused to speak to a reporter. Around the compound, six workers were putting the finishing touches on barricades at the hotel’s entrances.

“I’m fine,” Mr. Hayashi said. “I have no intention of leaving.”  

Ms. Folkman said CarVal had no involvement in the hotel sweeps. She suggested that Alchemy, which was hired in 2008 to manage the hotels, had encouraged the employees to remain to attract publicity. “We believe Alchemy’s dissatisfaction with the sale is motivating their behavior,” she said, “and we believe many of the claims they are making to The New York Times and others are wholly without merit.” She said that Alchemy was trying to protect its own business and that it had demanded 300 million yen ($3.9 million) to leave the hotels. The demand, she said, was “without any legal basis.” Alchemy, she said, has tried to disrupt the sale because it would like to buy the hotels.

 Mr. Mijatovic countered that Alchemy’s agreement with CarVal had two years remaining and that his company had sought the money to make up for fees lost because of the early termination.

CarVal, which became a wholly owned subsidiary of Cargill in 2006 and now has $9 billion under management, was one of the first American companies to buy portfolios of bad loans and distressed properties after Japan’s real estate collapse in 1990. Since then, investors ranging from Goldman Sachs to smaller vulture funds have paid fire-sale prices for properties.

Love hotels, while tricky to manage, are attractive to investors because of their stable, strong cash flow and high yields. At Hotel Shine, about 3,000 yen, or $38, buys 90 minutes in a bland room dominated by a king-size bed. According to Leisure hotel, a trade publication, the industry has sales of 2 trillion to 3 trillion yen, or $38 billion, a year.

But in recent years, the hotels have attracted the Japanese mafia, big players in the real estate market.

Mr. Mijatovic, Alchemy’s chief executive, said he had passed along a report that Kato had links to organized crime to CarVal and to law enforcement authorities. CarVal said the report, commissioned by Alchemy and prepared by Kroll Advisory Solutions, a global corporate investigations and risk consulting company, lacked credibility.

The report suggests that the Yamaguchi-gumi, Japan’s largest crime syndicate, has made a direct investment of 30 million yen in Kato Pleasure.

Mr. Mijatovic said his lawyers met Monday with the Tokyo Metropolitan Police to discuss information about Kato. Police officials declined to comment on whether they had held such a meeting.

Japan has recently strengthened its laws against doing business with organized crime. The United States Treasury has banned transactions between Americans and Yamaguchi-gumi.

The Kroll report also says Kato, a big company in the love hotel industry, is known for poor working conditions, including overtime work without pay. Takeshi Okubo, a 57-year-old cleaner at a hotel operated by Kato Pleasure in Osaka and a member of a local union, said labor violations were rampant, including unpaid overtime.

Ms. Folkman said the Kroll report and Alchemy had misrepresented Kato Pleasure’s business. CarVal’s legal team found the Kroll memo “vague and filled with innuendo,” she wrote.

She noted that Orix, a major financial services company in Japan, had brokered the sale. CarVal conducted its own research on Kato, she added, and concluded that it was a large, respected hospitality provider in Japan. Kroll declined to comment.

A separate, independent report by Teikoku Databank, a well-known credit research firm, previously cast doubt on Kato Pleasure’s business. The report, dated October 2011, said Kato Pleasure had an account with one small credit union in Osaka but appeared to have none at a major Japanese financial organization. That is generally a rarity for an established business in Japan and can be one sign of mafia ties, according to Hitoshi Suzuki, a lawyer who heads the anti-organized crime committee of the Daiichi Tokyo Bar Association. He cautioned that he was not familiar with the specifics of Kato Pleasure’s operations.

The report said Kato Pleasure had booked an operating loss of 9.2 million yen, or $118,000 in the early months of 2011. As a credit rating, the firm gave Kato Pleasure a failing grade of 39 points out of a possible 100.

An official at Kato Pleasure’s headquarters in Tokyo, who identified himself only as Kawamoto, said on Monday that the company had “absolutely no links” with the Japanese mafia. He called the sale of the hotels “entirely valid” and said it intended to proceed “without a fuss.” When a reporter tried to ask more questions, he hung up. Further calls to the company’s main number went unanswered on Monday evening.

Katsuyuki Suezumi, an official in Osaka at the leisure hotels department of Orix, which brokered the sale, said he was not authorized to comment on the deal. A list of questions sent to Orix headquarters in Tokyo was not answered on Monday. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/02/business/global/conflict-in-cargill-sale-of-love-hotel-in-japan.html?ref=business