Tokyo Barrister: Start the law firm bankruptcy

Chapter 900: Experts vs. Experts!!
Judge Ono Tsutomu couldn't help but interrupt Tamashiro. The other judges on the stage also looked confused. Why would a lawyer sitting in the plaintiff's seat express an opinion that was unfavorable to his client?

"Chief Judge..." Yucheng swallowed, "We hope to fully and objectively reveal the facts to the court so that the court can make an accurate judgment."

Judge Ohno Tsutomu frowned slightly, then looked at the bankruptcy administrator, "Have you made a decision internally? Do you want to file a lawsuit? It seems that even your own people have different opinions now."

The bankruptcy administrator was embarrassed when he heard Judge Ono Tsutomu's question. After all, he was caught in the middle. On one side was Kitahara, and on the other side were Tanimoto, Tamashiro, and Abe. These people were not easy to mess with. The bankruptcy administrator could only cough awkwardly:
"We hope that the court will objectively examine the claims made by the bankruptcy administrator."

Judge Ono Tsutomu wanted to reprimand them when he saw this. But he thought better of it. He didn't want to cause any more trouble. In his career as a judge, he had never seen a situation like today where the lawyers in the plaintiff's seat made contradictory statements to each other. But after all, the case would be suspended because the Tokyo police were investigating contract fraud.

Judge Oono Tsutomu didn't want to complicate matters and wanted to finish the court session quickly, so he continued:

"You guys go ahead."

Tamashiro nodded and added to Kitahara, "As for what Attorney Kitahara said just now, regarding the transfer of assets by Nippon Steel using R&D expenses, we would also like to remind the court that the proportion of Nippon Steel's R&D expenses is not significantly higher than that of companies in the same industry, so there is no problem with Nippon Steel's R&D contract!"

Hearing this, Kitahara laughed out loud, "Tamashiro, the key to the problem is not the proportion of R&D expenses to the total expenditure of the enterprise, but what proportion of the expenses recorded as R&D expenses are actually used for R&D. This is the central issue, don't make a mistake!"

"Do you think it's appropriate to cancel so many R&D contracts at once?!" Yucheng asked, "Will these research institutes pursue Nippon Steel's liability for breach of contract? If the experimental results have not been delivered, but the payment has been made. Then we can completely ask these research institutes to continue to fulfill their R&D contract obligations."

"All the research and development companies of Kyoto University have run away." Kitahara directly displayed several photos. These photos were all scenes of old, dilapidated, unmanned factory parks.

"Lawyer Yucheng, how many of the research and development companies in these more than 100 contracts have you visited?" Kitahara continued, "Do you know how many have gone bankrupt and disappeared? Do you expect the companies with office addresses in the photos to continue to deliver scientific research results to you?!"

"We cannot verify the authenticity of this evidence!" Yucheng replied firmly.

Kitahara did not continue to tangle with Tamashiro because one of the goals today was to shock the high-level executives of Nippon Steel present, and that was enough.

"In addition to fabricating R&D contracts—" Kitahara said, "Nippon Steel has also been importing raw materials or purchasing equipment at prices 30% higher than the market price for a long time. The real purpose of these procurement contracts is obviously to transfer Nippon Steel's cash. For this reason, we also ask the court to revoke these procurement contracts with abnormal prices!"

In court, Kitahara and Miyakawa began to produce these procurement contracts one after another.

From raw materials to production equipment and even office stationery.

The most outrageous contract was for purchasing bathroom hand sanitizer at a unit price of 20,000 yen per bottle.

Kitahara and others showed the contract and the market price of the purchased products.

The two numbers are specially marked in red for comparison.

The difference between the two was clear to see. The senior executives of Nippon Steel were sweating. Over the years, who among the management of Nippon Steel had not tried to take a bite out of the supply chain?

You know, this trend was brought about by Chairman Shibata.

The people below will naturally follow suit.

There are even extreme examples such as hand sanitizers that cost 20,000 yen per bottle.

If these unreasonably priced contracts were really cancelled in the future, the next target would probably be themselves, thought a Nippon Steel executive in the audience.

Yucheng frowned and immediately retorted, "Mr. Kitahara, it's not right for you to generalize like this! You are generalizing based on a few extreme cases!"

"Take the laundry detergent you just mentioned, which costs 30 yen a bottle. Nippon Steel actually only purchased bottles, and then found out that the price was abnormal, so it stopped purchasing. The responsible personnel were punished later! However, you singled out this case to emphasize it, which is obviously an attempt to mislead the court!!!"

"Even when buying hand sanitizer for the employee bathroom, they could make such a mistake. How good do you think other business contracts will be?" Kitahara retorted.

Yucheng raised his eyebrows and said again: "Judge. The method used by Attorney Kitahara just now is extremely misleading. He made a simple and crude comparison of the so-called 'market price' of the product, but ignored the extremely complex details in business practice."

"For example, let's take the example of a contract for production equipment that Counsel Kitahara gave just now. The warranty period of this contract is as long as eight years, while the warranty period on the market is generally only two years. The contract also stipulates that the cost of the repair engineer shall be borne by the seller. This is inconsistent with the contract terms of similar production equipment on the market. In this case, the equipment seller has a completely reasonable business reason to charge a higher price than the normal market price."

In court——

Yucheng dismantled step by step the unreasonable business contract that Kitahara and others complained about.

Her language is clear and concise.

It can convert complicated business details into common language that ordinary people can understand.

When the Nippon Steel executives present heard Tamashiro's speech, they couldn't help but sigh in their hearts that it was extremely brilliant.

"As for the raw materials—" Yucheng began, "I hope that Attorney Kitahara will not underestimate the fact that the raw material for steelmaking is only pig iron. In fact, each type of iron ore is different, and slight differences may lead to huge changes in the quality of the final steel."

"On the surface, it seems that the raw materials purchased by Nippon Steel are higher than the market price. However, we believe that after comprehensively considering various factors such as the quality of iron ore, the timeliness of transportation, and marine insurance, Nippon Steel's purchasing price is not obviously abnormal. It is completely different from what lawyer Kitahara said, that Nippon Steel is transferring its corporate assets in an unreasonable way!!"

"Therefore, it is unreasonable to ask Nippon Steel to cancel these purchase contracts. Such a reckless move will have a huge negative impact on Nippon Steel's reputation!"

(End of this chapter)