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Topic: Sokaiya

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	IR ON THE NET: Gangs Busted (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Sokaiya are the corporate racketeers who, through the honest purchase of a minimum number of a company's shares, are legally permitted to attend shareholder meetings.
		Sokaiya are part of the broader yakuza tradition of troublesome involvement in the darker side of business and politics in Japan.
		Whether sokaiya activity is really in decline, as official figures indicate, or whether companies are just more discreet in their payments, is difficult to determine because it is not something that is openly discussed in Japan.
	www.ironthenet.com /feature.asp?current=0&articleID=1042 (2020 words)

	Asia Times: Gangsters still rake in profits from stockholders' meetings
		Indeed, just a few days after announcing that the number of firmswho gave money to sokaiya dropped 44 percent last year from 1997figures, police last week were admitting that there were companieshanding over sums ranging from less than 1 million yen ($8,350) to1 billion yen ($8.3 million).
		This is despite the concerted efforts of some 2,227 companiesnationwide to hold their meetings simultaneously on June 29, tominimize the disruptive attendance of sokaiya members.
		Sokaiya also published trade and financial newsletters thatserved as a facade for their illegal activities as well as yetanother source of income.
	www.atimes.com /japan-econ/AG06Dh01.html (735 words)

	JPRI Critique Vol. VI No. 8
		Since the sokaiya are still alive and well in Japan, I would propose that this is because deep-rooted structural problems within the financial system have not been resolved during the past two decades of gradual liberalization.
		It is true that in terms of numbers and influence, the sokaiya have been declining from their heyday in the 1960s.
		Sokaiya have four weapons: violence, sex, inside information, and the simple ability to make a company president lose face by shouting and heckling at the annual general meeting.
	www.jpri.org /publications/critiques/critique_VI_8.html (1939 words)

	Re: Sokaiya (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Sokaiya don't only ask embarrassing questions at general stockholders' meetings, they look for most any kind of scam to extort money out of companies.
		Sokaiya normally hold a small number of shares in companies from which they extort money by threatening to disrupt "sokai", the shareholders' meetings, by disclosing managerial errors or scandals.
		Other companies have been asked by sokaiya to lease paintings to decorate their offices, while some sokaiya run restaurants where company officials are pressured to dine.
	www.mail-archive.com /fukuzawa@ucsd.edu/msg12516.html (1799 words)

	NewStandard: 12/1/97
		Success in rooting out the sokaiya is crucial to the campaign to clean up the Japanese way of doing business.
		The roots of sokaiya are believed to stretch to the turn of the century, though it really took off in the 1960s when the Japanese economy expanded and more and more companies went public.
		Once "hired," sokaiya act as enforcers for the companies, intimidating other shareholders out of asking probing questions and keeping the meetings down to a swift -- and uneventful -- 30 minutes or so.
	www.s-t.com /daily/12-97/12-01-97/a05wn033.htm (696 words)

	ZoomInfo Web Summary: Kenneth Szymkowiak (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Sokaiya, organized flmailers and violent protesters who attack Japanese corporations, executives and their families, and disrupt shareholder meetings--often at the behest of other Japanese companies--is the subject of Sokaiya: Extortion, Protection and the Japanese Corporation (M.E. Sharpe, Inc.) by Kenneth Szymkowiak, Ph.D. In a January 10 lecture, Dr.
		Sokaiya were very active in the 1970s protests over the Minamata mercury poisonings and other consumer issues, as well as in support of right-wing political groups' anti-Vietnam War demonstrations," explained Dr.
		He went on to explain that payments to sokaiya are hidden in the corporate balance sheet as fees paid for golf competitions, donations to charities and founders' birthday celebrations, and are frequently made to sham companies for services that are never rendered.
	www.zoominfo.com /directory/Szymkowiak_Kenneth_172584625.htm (760 words)

	1/87 SHAREHOLDERS RIGHTS - Sokaiya - Commercial Code (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Sokaiya are a cross between professional shareholders and extortionists.
		Although the police appear to be serving a warning on Japanese corporate management, according to a survey by the Commercial Law Research Group (shoji homu kenkyukai), an advisory group to the Ministry of Justice, the aim of open shareholders meetings sought by the 1982 amendment to the Commercial Code is still as distant as ever.
		Over 33% reported that they had been visited by sokaiya prior to their shareholders meetings and another 31% had been contacted before the meeting by telephone.
	www.japanlaw.info /lawletter/jan87/fbt.htm (386 words)

	AB Sep 01, 1997 Scandal hurts Big Bang reform
		Spreading allegations of illicit sokaiya ties at some of Japan's leading financial institutions add to the weight of a formidable and far-reaching agenda to deregulate the country's financial sector and create open competition.
		Right now, the still widening scandal that brought one of the nation's most influential sokaiya out of the shadows and on to centre stage is providing an unexpected yardstick by which to gauge the prospects for transparency, fairness and enforcement of rules in the future of Japan's financial system.
		Sokaiya activities range from the petty to the princely, and their targets include at least a third of all large corporations in Japan.
	www.cargonewsasia.com /timesnet/data/ab/docs/ab1403.html (2971 words)

	The Clarion-Ledger: Mississippi's News Source
		For years, those companies have all held the meeting on the same day to limit attendance by mob-linked "sokaiya," who buy token stakes in companies and then try to coax payments out of them by asking rambling, embarrassing questions at the meetings.
		Many executives have put up with the sokaiya, which means "dealers of shareholders' meetings," rather than face up to them.
		"Sokaiya aren't showing up at shareholders' meetings as much as before and these days are unlikely to get violent or cause disruptions," said Koji Morioka, Kansai University professor and expert on shareholders' rights.
	orig.clarionledger.com /news/0106/23/b1a.html (383 words)

	BBC News \| BUSINESS \| Japan companies bid to bar gangsters
		The meetings were synchronised, in a bid to avoid questions from criminal extortionists called "sokaiya".
		Many companies are thought to pay bribes to sokaiya to stop them asking questions they don't want to answer.
		Sokaiya can also get paid money for preventing other people asking questions at the meetings.
	news.bbc.co.uk /1/hi/business/807611.stm (589 words)

	BLACKMAIL! (BW int'l edition, 7-21-97)
		But for decades, many executives actually employed sokaiya as muscle to keep unruly investors in check during their choreographed annual meetings.
		In fact, the number of sokaiya is estimated to have declined to around 1,000, from 1,700 just after corporate payoffs were banned in 1982.
		Two executives are arrested for allegedly giving sokaiya $90,000 to keep them from asking embarrassing questions in public in the wake of the food-product maker's 1996 guilty plea in the U.S. to charges it took part in a cartel that fixed world prices for lysine.
	www.calbaptist.edu /dskubik/scandal.htm (2224 words)

	East Cathay
		Also in the lower ranks of the business is the so-called bonsai sokaiya, who walks around company offices shouting the exclamation "banzai!" When questioned he states that he has just become a shareholder and is merely expressing his joy and a desire to encourage greater worker productivity.
		So lucrative is the field that some corporate officials who once dealt regularly with the sokaiya have switched roles and turn up as sokaiya at company meetings...
		Western scholars who have studied the sokaiya believed these racketeers depend on a dismal pattern of poor disclosure by Japanese companies, lack of oversight by government officials, and a general lack of accountability....
	eastcathay.blogspot.com /2005/04/this-is-last-installment-on-yakuza.html (1022 words)

	7/86 SHAREHOLDERS MEETINGS-----SOKAIYA ET AL - Commercial Code - Shareholders’ Rights
		Those feeling that the activities of the sokaiya were significantly increasing amounted to 37.9% According to the National Police Agency however, the number of such sokaiya in the Tokyo area have decreased to 970-980 from around 3500 operating in 1982.
		In this case the sokaiya warned an electric utility construction firm that he had obtained contaminated gloves and shoes from workers at a nuclear power plant and threatened to reveal the firm's incompetency.
		Due to revisions in the Commercial Code meant to restrain the activities of sokaiya at the same time as enhancing the rights of legitimate shareholders, out of the thousand plus shareholder meeting held on the day, discussions of proposals filed by shareholders were achieved in only three cases.
	www.japanlaw.info /lawletter/july86/ekr.htm (1077 words)

	_’kFuô”Ì³‘Ìv ðê—ðÌ Î_ª“fI
		The two fearful words, 'sokaiya' and 'jubaku' so frequently used by the mass media to cover those cases, have become in vogue among the people since then.
		I cannot but think, however, that such spellbound situation has been created by the police, and by the mass media that do nothing but repeat what is announced by the police or arrange it for their own sake.
		For example, the police announced that sokaiyas are still quite active in spite of the fact that the number of them has gone down to approximately 600 this year.
	www.rondan.co.jp /html/ara/zaikai/index-e.html (958 words)

	MJO's Web Site - Japan's Corporate Governance (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Sokaiya have become more troublesome in recent years because of the financial hit many yakuza organizations took during the fall in real estate prices and the ensuing long recession.
		Sokaiya, in their present form, have been around for more than two decades.
		The threat from sokaiya, anger by ordinary citizens, and who knows what from the large American woman, prompted the mobilization of 10,000 police officers throughout the country.
	www.saintjoe.edu /~mjoakes/items/japan_corp_demo.html (2344 words)

	Sokaiya is Alive and Well in the United States
		In Japan there is a common practice whereby the Sokaiya extort payments from corporations in exchange for promises not to disrupt annual meetings.
		Yet in America there is a practice that the Sokaiya would delight in.
		Nevertheless, in an American version of Sokaiya, the plaintiff's lawyers have asked the court to award them over $100,000 in fees and expenses supposedly incurred in bringing their baseless lawsuit.
	www.gabelli.com /news/sokaiya.html (557 words)

	J-files 02/00 -- Japan, like the moon, has a dark side (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Behind the facades of many apparently sound and solid institutions lie many secrets, and it has fallen to the lot of a unique band of troublemakers to reveal these secrets, or, rather, to threaten to reveal them, unless they are paid for their silence.
		By agreeing not to disrupt these meetings with scurrilous comments or revelations of alleged corporate misbehavior, sokaiya are paid off for their silence, which for many has been indeed golden.
		JAL's misfortunes surfaced when one of the partners in the plant-rental scam had the ill luck to be murdered by an associate during a periodic sokaiya spat.
	www.japaninc.net /mag/comp/2000/02/print/feb00p_jfiles.html (785 words)

	Sokaiya: Extortion, Protection, and the Japanese Corporation:0765607794:Szymkowiak, Kenneth:eCampus.com (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Sokaiya are extortionists who target Japanese corporations for payoffs.
		This book explores the curious but not unusual relationship that grows between executives and sokaiya, who also offer their services to protect the corporation from other sokaiya, thus becoming a necessary evil in the world of Japanese business.
		The book documents the history and development of sokaiya over the past 100 years since Japan first enacted a commercial code.
	www.ecampus.com /bk_detail.asp?isbn=0765607794 (103 words)

	JAPANTOI.htm in Business Recorder on September 05, 1997 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		The number of sokaiya has declined sharply from the nearly 5,000 believed active before their activities were outlawed.
		An increase in corporate crime, including that involving sokaiya, has prompted one insurance firm to start offering unique policies to protect themselves against the consequences of wrongdoing by staff members and a consulting services to try to prevent such crimes before they occur.
		The policies, offered by Mitsui Marine and Fire Insurance Co, are the first of their kind in Japan and give companies up to 20 million yen of damage protection against crimes such as embezzlement, breach of trust, robbery or burglary.
	www.paksearch.com /br97/Sep/5/JAPANTOI.htm (449 words)

	'Sokaiya' scams hit Japan - Dec. 19, 1997
		NEW YORK (CNNfn) - They are know as "sokaiya," and they are corporate extortionists that prey upon the Japanese desire to maintain at least the outward appearance of harmony and avoid public humiliation.
		Part of the reason the sokaiya thrive is that companies in Japan don't release nearly as much information to shareholders as businesses do in the United States.
		Patrick said the Nomura case was unique because the sokaiya actually owned enough stock of the company to propose a candidate for the board of directors.
	money.cnn.com /1997/12/19/investing/q_sokside (492 words)

	Yakuza in our banking system
		Secondly, the revision of the Commercial Law in 1982 put tighter controls on "sokaiya," a racketeer who extorts money from companies by causing trouble at stockholder's meetings, who found their territory increasingly encroached by the yakuza.
		The Sokaiya will harass companies like a hyena, and in some cases flmail them by unearthing scandals involving management, or they play the role ofprotector at the stockholder's meeting to prevent tough questioning by stockholders.
		Therefore, many sokaiya groups that could no longer profit from their traditional business associated themselves with yakuza groups to work on projects such as publishing a magazine specializing in exposing corporate scandals.
	www.irs-agency.us /yakuza_in_our_banking_system.htm (1403 words)

	Chapter 5
		But sokaiya rarely need to resort to violence: Japanese companies are so obsessed with appearances, that they offer cash several times a year to the nation’s estimated 1,000 sokaiya.
		One trick sokaiya use is approaching companies to buy advertising space in their magazines that only contain the front and back covers, with blank pages in between.
		But skilled sokaiya manage to collect several million dollars a year without even showing up at the share holder meetings.
	www.huizenga.nova.edu /5012/lectures/Chpt04.html (1475 words)

	Asiaweek.com
		He described the sokaiya scandals as a problem not only of Nomura and DKB: "They can shake up Japan's entire corporate world." In a survey of investors in April, the majority of respondents said the upheavals are early signs of the pain Japan Inc. will experience as it is reborn.
		A similar sokaiya scandal had rocked the company and the man rearrested last week had vowed to stop the practice once and for all.
		The sokaiya -- gangster -- at the center of the scandals is Koike Ryuichi, who has been arrested.
	www.asiaweek.com /asiaweek/97/0704/biz1.html (1591 words)

	ILA Vol. 13 No.13 (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		Then, they contact the (usually mid-level) officials of the corporation who are responsible for arranging the shareholders' meeting, threatening to disrupt and prolong the meeting with various allegations of illegal or unethical corporate behavior.
		Sometimes, "sokaiya" are even hired by corporate officials to help keep the annual meeting under control, by stopping others (through the use of physical force, if necessary) who might want to raise "uncomfortable" issues at the meeting.
		Apparently, the "sokaiya" have been extorting money in this way for quite a long time, but only now are their activities finally being widely publicized.
	www.law.indiana.edu /publications/ila/13_13.html (3649 words)

	Isao Kaneko 1938– - STYLE, RESTRUCTURING, SOKAIYA, JAPAN AIR SYSTEM
		Another result of such unpleasantness was that legitimate shareholders were prevented from openly meeting with executives who were afraid of the extortionists.
		An arrangement was made to allow JAL to hold some meetings: for eight years the company rented plants from the sokaiya as a payoff.
		By conducting shareholder meetings simultaneously, the firms were able to reduce the power of the sokaiya, who could not be present at all meetings.
	www.referenceforbusiness.com /biography/F-L/Kaneko-Isao-1938.html (1806 words)

	Japan faces fresh scandal - Mar. 11, 1997
		TOKYO (CNNfn) - For the second time in less than a week, a case of suspected payoffs to "sokaiya" racketeers shows yet again how tough it appears to be for corporate Japan to cut the ties that bind it to organized crime.
		In paying off the sokaiya, Japanese executives want to "avoid any form of confrontation [and] make it look as if everything is going all right and [there is] no problem at all," said Toshiko Binder, senior analyst at HSBC James Capel.
		Some experts also said the ability of sokaiya to prey on management reflected a corporate stance that places little emphasis on providing information to shareholders, who are often indifferent anyway.
	money.cnn.com /1997/03/11/companies/japan_gangsta_pkg (500 words)

	Japanese firms find racketeer relations hard to sever
		Corporate racketeers, known as "sokaiya," shake down companies by digging up dirt on executives or threatening to ask embarrassing questions at annual shareholder's meetings.
		With sokaiya payoffs now squarely in the public's eye, many companies feel they have take to demonstrate their resolve to stay clean.
		Payoffs to sokaiya have been illegal since 1982, when Japan's commercial code was revised.
	www.expressindia.com /fe/daily/19971226/36055323.html (481 words)

	japan for the uninvited: sokaiya (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-11-05)
		The sokaiya are racketeer groups who flmail large companies.
		Often, sokaiya are hired by the companies to ensure these meetings run smoothly, and protect them from other pressure groups.
		One famous group is the “banzai” sokaiya, who raid business places, screaming “Banzai!” until they are paid to leave.
	japanfortheuninvited.com /article.php?topic=sokaiya (194 words)

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