Tokyo Barrister: Start the law firm bankruptcy

Chapter 877 Bankruptcy ruling accepted! !

"This lawyer named Kitahara!!" Minister of General Affairs Terada cursed fiercely in the meeting room. None of the senior executives present had expected that a lawyer for a workshop contractor could actually... actually stir up such a big storm.

It was on this day that the name Kitahara was remembered by the cabinet minister and the executives in the conference room, including Nippon Steel's chairman Shibata and Future Space's chief officer Miho Shima, all of whom were well-known entrepreneurs.

Although they had never met this lawyer and did not know that he was such a young man, they were all deeply impressed by his approach, which was to use the overseas bankruptcy system!

Minister of General Affairs Terada naturally disliked this approach. Because in this way, the lawyer Kitahara was taking risks with the entire assets of Nippon Steel. If the overseas court made a bankruptcy declaration first, the Japanese court would lose its dominance, and the more than 100 workshop contractors would not be able to get any good results.

"Is there any way?" In the meeting room, Terada has not given up completely.

However, he was greeted with silence from the entire legal team.

The three lawyers, Tanimoto, Tamashiro, and Abe, had not figured out a way to solve the problem. These three experts in the field of bankruptcy were pushed to this point by such a young man.

Other corporate executives who were unwilling to give up also proposed some possible response plans, but they all failed in the end because the legal team said they were not feasible.

Finally, Nippon Steel acknowledged this bleak fact.

They lost.

At least they lost in preventing the declaration of bankruptcy.

That evening, Nippon Steel issued an announcement on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, confirming that it had received bankruptcy notices from 37 overseas courts and that its overseas assets were facing the possibility of liquidation. This announcement was like the bullet that knocked down the giant Nippon Steel.

On the night of the announcement, Nippon Steel's overseas stocks issued in the form of depositary receipts in overseas securities markets plummeted 20% within 80 minutes of opening, and its overseas dollar bonds lost nearly 90% of their value. No one expected that this sudden change would happen so quickly.

So many overseas courts are reviewing the liquidation process of Nippon Steel. This has caused unprecedented turmoil. Which court will be the first court to declare Nippon Steel bankrupt? If there is confusion in the court of bankruptcy jurisdiction, even if Nippon Steel wants to reorganize in the future, it will be very troublesome and it will be almost impossible to change the fate of being dismantled.

The Tokyo High Court naturally paid attention to Nippon Steel's announcement. The justices immediately convened a meeting to conduct an emergency study. They did not expect such a situation to happen.

Naturally, these justices all paid attention to the effectiveness of cross-border bankruptcy. There were two opinions among the justices. One was the hardliners, who believed that the pace of Japanese judicial proceedings should not be affected by overseas courts. The hardliners believed that the Tokyo High Court should issue a temporary order on Nippon Steel's overseas assets under the current circumstances, seal up the assets, and first control the right to seal up under the Japanese courts, and then decide whether to declare bankruptcy based on the pace of the trial.

Simply put, the hard-line approach is to seal up the property first and then slowly try the case.

The other faction is the quick-war faction. The judges who hold the view of quick-war take a pragmatic stance. They believe that under such circumstances, the court has no choice but to take the lead in declaring bankruptcy. If the Tokyo court continues to drag on, then when the Tokyo court order conflicts with the overseas court order in the future, it will cause extremely complex cross-border judicial issues, which will only make it more difficult to solve the problem of Nippon Steel.

In simple terms, the view of the quick-fire judges is to recognize that overseas courts will inevitably affect the Japanese judicial system, and take the best decision-making pace under this premise. After one judge meeting after another, the view of the quick-fire judges finally became the view of the majority of judges. They all agreed that it would be better to first announce the start of bankruptcy proceedings.

If we delay any further, there will be big trouble.

The judges of the Tokyo High Court were acting almost according to the script set by Kitahara. Before, almost everyone thought that Kitahara's words that the court would make a decision to start bankruptcy within two weeks were nonsense. However, now this seemingly impossible situation is being realized step by step.

After the decision was made at an internal meeting, the Tokyo High Court took prompt action. Although various forces had attempted to influence the Nippon Steel case since the bankruptcy application began, it was no longer effective. Under the strong offensive of overseas courts, the court had to take action.

In the second week.

On the last day of the two-week deadline predicted by Kitahara, the Tokyo High Court officially issued a ruling to accept the bankruptcy case.

"Tokyo High Court [293] Civil Decision—"

"Bankruptcy applicants: Shiga Iron and Steel Research Institute and other 168 companies. Litigation agents: Eto Law Firm, Kitahara Yoshiichi, lawyer, Miyagawa Saeko, trainee lawyer."

"Respondent: Shinichi Steel Manufacturing Co., Ltd. Litigation Agents: Mori Hamada Matsumoto Law Office, Yasuzo Tanimoto, TMI Law Office, Ikumi Tamashiro, Anderson Mori & Tomotsune Law Office, Tatsuya Abe"

"After receiving the bankruptcy application, the court formed a collegial panel in accordance with the law and held a hearing to listen to the opinions of both the applicant and the respondent. The respondent argued that the applicant's claims were not established and were not real, and that Nippon Steel still had net assets and had not reached the statutory bankruptcy conditions of insolvency, so the application should be rejected."

"In this regard, the court held that the claims in this case have the documents of claims notarized by the bank, which are claims that can be directly enforced according to law. The respondent's argument that the claims are invalid and untrue is not valid. Regarding the net assets of Nippon Steel, the court held that there are two statutory conditions for bankruptcy, and insolvency is only one of them. The other condition is the lack of obvious solvency. In this case, Nippon Steel is unable to pay the debts of many contractors and suppliers, which is a statutory situation of obvious lack of solvency."

"The Court therefore decrees as follows—"

“First, accept the bankruptcy petition filed by the applicant against Nippon Steel.”

"Second, from the date of acceptance of this ruling, all civil lawsuits involving Nippon Steel will be suspended."

"Third, all property preservation measures such as the seizure of Nippon Steel will be lifted in accordance with the law, and Nippon Steel's property will be disposed of by the bankruptcy administrator appointed by this court in accordance with the law."

"Fourth, all new civil lawsuits against Nippon Steel will be centrally handled by this court in accordance with the law."

(End of this chapter)