Tokyo Barrister: Start the law firm bankruptcy

Chapter 949 Upper Limit
Qiu Hui is an elite member of the prosecutor's office.

Elites will never be easily defeated.

At this moment, the prosecutors on the other side of the table began to unconsciously tense up.

The opposing legal team consisted of only one lawyer, Kitahara, who was advocating for innocence.

The other lawyers all argued for a lighter sentence.

Judging from the reaction of lawyer Nishio during the trial, lawyer Kitahara's plea of ​​not guilty was likely not discussed with them beforehand. This means that lawyer Kitahara was acting alone, confronting hundreds of elite legal officers from the prosecutor's office!
In response to Akiho's proposal, Kitahara stood up and showed a chart to everyone present.

The chart details the breakdown of the price paid by Mountain Lake Capital.

Kitahara pointed to the chart and said, "The payment that Mountain Lake Capital makes to the farmers is determined by the number of ants that have successfully reproduced. As you can see from the chart, one factor that determines the compensation is the market price of the ants. In other words, the more ants that have successfully reproduced, and the higher the market price of ants at that time, the higher the labor income that the farmers can obtain."

"Most importantly, as the chart shows, the level of compensation paid to farmers does not significantly exceed the market price of ants. From the perspective of the market price of ants, the returns received by farmers are not significantly excessive!"

"The reason the prosecution has the misconception that the returns are abnormally high is because they don't understand that this is how it is in industries that are booming in a market economy. When the market demand for ant breeding increases rapidly, this expanded demand will also be reflected in the compensation for ant farmers!"

Kitahara finished speaking.

at this time--

On the prosecution's side, the victim's lawyer, Tsuchiya, seemed to have caught something.

This civil rights lawyer also possesses extremely profound legal expertise.

Attorney Tsuchiya immediately stood up:

"Defense attorney, on the one hand, you say that the payments made by Shanhu Capital to the farmers are labor remuneration, and on the other hand, you say that labor remuneration is greatly affected by the market price of Ant Group. Don't you think this is a contradiction?!"

Attorney Tsuchiya quickly seized upon a logical contradiction.

He further elaborated on his argument:
"Generally speaking, the remuneration based on labor is relatively fixed and will not fluctuate significantly. After all, no matter how hard a person works, they can only provide ten or so hours of work a day, which is already the limit of the human body. As for the breeding and care of ants, it is by no means a highly scarce or irreplaceable job."

"If the payments made by Shanhu Capital are indeed labor remuneration, then they should be relatively fixed and not highly correlated with Ant Group's market price. Moreover, from an industry comparison perspective, the labor remuneration paid by Shanhu Capital to Ant Group is much higher than that of other similar industries."

Therefore, it is quite obvious—

"So-called labor income is investment income!"

"The victims' lawyers fully agree with the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office's determination of the nature of the funds involved. There is no doubt that Shanhu Capital constitutes illegal fundraising!"

This civil rights lawyer is adept at seizing opportunities and launching fierce counterattacks.

Upon hearing this, everyone in the audience seemed to wake up from a dream.

I think I was really fooled by that lawyer Kitahara just now!
Yes!

Isn't this investment return?!

Where is this labor income?!

Upon hearing the counterattack launched by lawyer Tsuchiya across the way, Nishio became somewhat hesitant to look at Kitahara.

The High Court is definitely not a place for playing word games or trying to gain attention.

Trying to steal the spotlight will only result in being thoroughly humiliated and crushed!

Tsuchiya accurately pointed out a problem in Kitahara's argument: that labor income generally does not exhibit high volatility.

However—at that moment, Kitahara's lips curled up slightly.

The other party seemed to have walked into a trap he had set beforehand.

Kitahara immediately retorted, "Attorney Tsuchiya's argument that labor remuneration is highly volatile, thus denying it as labor remuneration and instead considering it as investment income, is completely incorrect!"

"To give an example, many listed companies now have so-called equity incentive arrangements. A portion of the company's employees' salaries is determined by the equity issued by the company. Fluctuations in the listed company's stock price will greatly affect the value of the equity incentive."

"Excuse me, Attorney Tsuchiya, isn't equity incentive a form of compensation?"

Kitahara did not use lengthy and complex arguments.

Instead, they introduced equity incentives, a common example.

For employees holding equity incentives, this portion of their compensation is highly tied to the stock price until it is realized.

Tsuchiya was taken aback when Kitahara brought up this example.

Equity incentives are actually a controversial legal issue.

Whether equity incentives are compensation for labor and whether they belong to salary has been debated for a long time without a definitive conclusion.

The exact nature of this issue is not important.

Importantly, it undermines the fixed nature of labor remuneration.

The next second—

Kitahara continued his relentless attack: "Attorney Tsuchiya, you have represented labor unions in numerous lawsuits, and you have advocated for the establishment of new types of companies where workers and business owners share profits. Why are you now arguing that excess profits from products are not part of labor compensation? Aren't you just deceiving yourself?"

Kitahara, in turn, used the enemy's own weapon against him.

"In your worldview, can labor income and salary income only be fixed and not linked to the company's profits and product revenue?!"

Kitahara posed a series of rhetorical questions.

Tsuchiya frowned.

This lawyer, Kitahara, was more difficult to deal with than he had imagined.

However, as he racked his brains for words to retaliate, this civil rights lawyer was momentarily at a loss for how to respond to Kitahara's rebuttal.

Tsuchiya has always had a fierce and combative courtroom style.

However, in his first encounter with Kitahara, he was forcibly held in place.

Kitahara continued, "..."

"The prosecution's argument that the high and volatile nature of labor income is a misconception to the nature of the funds in question is incorrect. The calculation method for labor remuneration can also include product sales revenue. Sales positions in enterprises, for example, use similar methods to calculate 'performance' income. These attributes do not change the determination of the nature of the funds."

"The farmers provide labor in the process of breeding ants. If we deny the nature of labor remuneration on the grounds of excessively high income, does that mean that we naturally set an upper limit on the value of labor, and that we only believe that labor is worth this much money?"

(End of this chapter)