Tokyo Barrister: Start the law firm bankruptcy

Chapter 845 New Case

"Who is it?" Kitahara asked.

"His name is Shiga Yukifumi," said Gu Meimon. "I admire this man very much. Shiga originally graduated from a technical school and worked as a workshop worker at Nippon Steel. Later, he used his spare time to study hard and also began to engage in research and development work in materials. It can be said that he is a man of action."

"Later, Shiga left Nippon Steel and established his own Iron and Steel Research Institute. Although it was called a research institute, it was actually a combination of a small steel company and a research and development institution. Shiga later used his previous connections at Nippon Steel to gradually contract workshops from Nippon Steel."

"You should be aware of the news that Nippon Steel's No. 6 and No. 7 steel plants have stopped operating," Kumimon continued.

"Yes, I know that."

"Shiga also contracted many workshops in the Sixth and Seventh Steel Plants, and now his research institute has suffered heavy losses." Gu Meimen said, "Shiga is also aware of the current situation of Nippon Steel. They want to recover their losses."

"If it's convenient for you, let's make an appointment to meet." Gu Meimen finally said on the phone, "In addition to Shiga, there are many similar small contractors. If you accept Shiga's commission, then these small contractors may come to you. Conservatively speaking, there are at least hundreds of them."

The call ends.

A new case is placed before Kitahara.

Kitahara urgently needed an entry point to conduct a detailed investigation inside Nippon Steel.

Coincidentally, this case could become an opportunity.

But it is also obvious that this case is very difficult to handle.

People like Shiga are just contractors in the steel plant workshop. They only have a small part of the many claims of Nippon Steel. Think about it, in front of them, there are banks, tax bureaus, labor unions, large suppliers, bondholders, etc. It is extremely difficult to cross so many opponents to grab a part of Nippon Steel's assets.

Moreover, it is estimated that the court may not easily agree to accept the bankruptcy application of a company like Nippon Steel.

A more likely scenario is restructuring.

If it is a reorganization, small creditors like Xiang Shiga will have basically no say.

Simply put, their small claims are the victims of corporate restructuring.

No one will actually listen to them.

However, Kitahara was curious about Shiga's identity as a contractor. A large-scale enterprise like Nippon Steel would actually subcontract out its workshops. This didn't sound like something that would happen in a large enterprise with a complete system.

"What's wrong, Kitahara?" Niwa and Miyagawa asked almost in unison.

"A case has come to us." Kitahara said, "It's a workshop contractor of Nippon Steel. Because of the shutdown of the Sixth and Seventh Steel Plants, their workshop contractors suffered heavy losses. They hope to recover their debts from Nippon Steel. However, what I'm more curious about is that Nippon Steel still has the practice of workshop contracting."

Niwa looked down at the information. The female reporter, who was familiar with financial news, said:

"This practice of workshop contracting emerged after Nippon Steel fell into operational difficulties," Niwa said. "Nippon Steel is a large enterprise that was privatized from a municipal enterprise, so it has a lot of bureaucratic habits. The various systems within Nippon Steel are relatively rigid, and it often bears the production targets issued by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry." "When Nippon Steel was profitable, this rigid system might have worked. However, after Nippon Steel's profitability declined significantly, this rigid system could not effectively respond to the changing needs of the market. Therefore, under this circumstance, Nippon Steel began to try to change in small steps."

"This change is the practice of workshop contracting," Niwa said. "To put it simply, Nippon Steel outsources the factory workshops. The contractor is responsible for meeting the daily production targets of the workshops. Nippon Steel settles accounts and pays fees based on the actual production volume of the workshops."

"In simple terms, the practice of workshop contracting is actually that the contractor advances money to pay the workers' wages and some miscellaneous expenses. The contractor's profit is the difference between the settlement remuneration paid by Nippon Steel and the contractor's advance payment. Through this method of contracting workshops, Nippon Steel can effectively reduce the pressure of cash expenditure while meeting production indicators."

"Later, the contracting of Nippon Steel's workshops went too far. At first, the contractors mainly paid for the workers' wages, and later even some of the steel plant's production lines were paid for by the contractors. As a result, some of Nippon Steel's workshops, named 'Nippon Steel', were actually operated by outside contractors."

"There was a scandal later on Nippon Steel," Niwa continued. "Some of Nippon Steel's managers started to get bolder. They even directly outsourced some of the production lines and charged a fixed fee. They did not purchase the steel produced by the production lines. They became completely like a lessor. The contractor only had to pay a fixed fee, and the rest of the workshop output belonged to them. This kind of contracting seemed to have changed its nature, turning Nippon Steel's equipment into assets for outsiders to use."

As they listened to Niwa's story, the workshop contracting system of Nippon Steel emerged before their eyes.

Miyakawa had never imagined that such a complicated situation existed in the business practice of enterprises. This was completely different from what she had learned in textbooks.

Kitahara felt a headache when listening to Niwa's story.

According to Niwa, the workshop contracting system eventually evolved into contractors participating in the investment of Nippon Steel's factories.

This makes the situation very complicated.

We need to sort out who owns those assets, and there may be a lot of wrangling here.

Especially now that Nippon Steel is in a precarious state of operation.

Any transfer of assets will be watched by countless eyes.

It is not ruled out that there will definitely be some people who want to take over the workshop assets formed by the contractor's investment.

Moreover, the contractor was also involved in the advance payment of the workers.

Presumably, the labor union within Nippon Steel must be extremely dissatisfied with contractors like Shiga.

The union should believe that contractors like them deprive Nippon Steel's own workers of job opportunities, bring in outside workers, and intensify competition.

After just a brief thought, Kitahara already felt that there were many enormous difficulties hidden within.

For contractors like Shiga, it is almost impossible to recover their debts.

However, there was no other way and he had to go ahead with it.

According to Eriko's intelligence, Rigang is involved with Eto and a "preacher" of the organization. I must find them!

(End of this chapter)