Tokyo Barrister: Start the law firm bankruptcy

Chapter 890: The Borers of Nippon Steel

"What's the next step?" Miyakawa asked Kitahara.

At the Eto Law Firm, Kitahara, Miyakawa, and Niwa gathered together to discuss the next course of action. Now that the bank's mortgage rights have been cancelled, they have a chance to breathe. However, the problem is far from being solved. According to the current operating conditions of Nippon Steel, it is already a company that is about to be hollowed out.

"I'm afraid it's difficult to get the money back now," Niwa said. "Besides, the union vote is approaching the deadline, and no one can predict the scale of action the union will eventually take."

"The next operation will also require your help, Niwa." Kitahara said to the female reporter in front of him.

"Me?" Niwa was a little bit incredulous when he heard Kitahara say that, and pointed at himself unconsciously.

"Yes." Kitahara said.

"why?"

"Because the subsequent operations will be a detective game."

"Detective game?"

Kitahara took out several thick Nippon Steel audit reports and placed them on the table. "Now, the audit of Nippon Steel has not been completed. However, the main accounts of several production bases have been basically settled. I asked the bankruptcy administrator for the audit reports of these parts, as well as the audit working papers and ledgers."

Then, Kitahara pointed behind him and saw cartons filling up almost half of the hall. "Many of them are audits of bank transfer vouchers, and there are also a lot of copies of other messy vouchers. I want to get them all too."

"This... so much?" Niwa opened his mouth slightly when he saw the mountain of information in front of him. He was also impressed by Kitahara's vigorous energy.

Such a huge amount of preliminary information was collected by Beiyuan.

Needless to say, everyone knows that Nippon Steel will definitely make things difficult for them during this process, and Kitahara must have used some unknown tricks to get his hands on these materials.

Miyakawa was also surprised to see so much information.

Although she had participated in the handling of bankruptcy cases, she was more involved in the preparation of creditors' meetings and mainly dealt with the issue of claim declaration. Miyakawa had never tried to deal with such in-depth issues that directly touched on the assets of bankrupt companies.

"So, what are we going to investigate?" Miyakawa asked. "How are we going to proceed with this detective game?"

"We need to find out who has eaten away Nippon Steel," Kitahara said. "It is rare for a large enterprise like this to have such a lot of problems. Nippon Steel's products are not lagging behind in the world. On the contrary, they are still competitive. Logically, Nippon Steel would not fall to this point."

"It has come to this, which means there must be a lot of corrupt officials inside." Kitahara continued, "We need to find out who has hollowed out Nippon Steel. We need to find these people thoroughly, and then the bankruptcy administrator will file a lawsuit to recover the money."

Upon hearing Kitahara's plan, Miyagawa and Niwa both gasped.

We need to find out who has brought Nippon Steel to this state.

A former national enterprise.

Who is the real culprit behind this mess?

"Niwa, you've been a financial investigative reporter, so you should be very familiar with this kind of internal corruption in companies," Kitahara said. "So, for this investigation, we need to rely on your reporter's intuition to dig out the suspicious areas."

Niwa nodded. This was the first time that the young lawyer in front of her had asked her to do something in a serious manner. She would definitely do her best to complete the task. Soon, the group began to investigate.

It’s almost as if all three of these guys live in the law firm.

Every day from morning till night, busy until late at night.

Sometimes, we even stay up all night to find the key and important points.

When the lights in the surrounding shops and offices were turned off because it was late at night——

The lights were still on at Eto Law Firm.

The three young men inside are investigating the truth behind Nippon Steel.

Niwa is an excellent journalist after all.

When investigating an incident, many investigative journalists can only start from the corners of the incident most of the time, so the progress is very slow.

However, now there is a large amount of original data from Nippon Steel. For experienced investigative reporters, this is like a duck in water.

Soon, two or three weeks passed.

Niwa compiled a thick volume of materials.

"The termites of Nippon Steel have been found!" Niwa said to Kitahara and Miyagawa in front of him, "The biggest termites of Nippon Steel are Chairman Shibata, Financial Director Nagai, and Managing Director Uejima!"

To be honest, when Niwa saw these materials with his own eyes, he was shocked.

"First, there is Chairman Shibata," Niwa said. "After comparison, the price of raw materials purchased by Nippon Steel is 10% to 20% higher than similar products. The person who built Nippon Steel's supply chain system is Chairman Shibata. Among Nippon Steel's upstream manufacturers, I found that Shibata's son and other relatives hold shares."

"That is to say, while Nippon Steel's chairman Shibata was working for Nippon Steel, his relatives became suppliers to Nippon Steel and made a lot of money."

"Then there is the R&D expenses. Nippon Steel has invested a staggering amount of money in Kyoto University's industrial research enterprises, but these investments have not produced any substantial results. After the funds of these enterprises were withdrawn, they should have divided the spoils among them."

"Then there is Financial Director Nagai. He is in charge of Nippon Steel's huge cash account. But now it seems that Nippon Steel's cash has been seriously misappropriated, especially for high-risk speculative arbitrage activities and futures trading. After the aggressive trading caused losses, the company was responsible."

"There are so many high-risk investment activities. One is that the authenticity may be questionable. Maybe the funds were not used for investment but were directly transferred away. Another is the serious losses caused by investment activities. How big are these losses? Is there any use of losses to divert the company's funds to external parties? This is also a question that needs to be studied."

"Moreover, Nagai and Shibata cooperated with each other on the issue of supplier financing!" Niwa said, "In addition to the interest-bearing debts from banks, Nippon Steel also borrowed a large amount of money from suppliers at a price higher than the market interest rate."

"That is to say, Chairman Shibata's relatives were suppliers of Nippon Steel. After making a lot of money, they lent the money to Nippon Steel in return, thereby collecting high interest rates, forming a capital cycle that continuously drained the blood of Nippon Steel!"

According to Niwa's narration, the corruption in which the chairman and the financial director cooperated with each other to continuously transfer the company's funds abroad gradually emerged, which was shocking...

(End of this chapter)