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Nova boss handed 3 1/2 years
Former Nova President Nozomu Sahashi was sentenced Wednesday to 3 1/2 years in prison by the Osaka District Court for his role in skimming off employee funds in 2007, just before the foreign language school giant’s bankruptcy that October. Presiding Judge Hiroaki Higuchi’s severe sentence took some in the courtroom by surprise. Prosecutors had sought…
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Ex-Nova boss handed prison sentence for embezzling from workers’ fund
The Osaka District Court on Wednesday sentenced the former president of collapsed English language school operator Nova, who went on trial facing charges of embezzling money from an employees’ fund, to three years, six months behind bars. Handed the sentence was former company president Nozomu Sahashi, 57. According to the ruling, Sahashi transferred 320 million…
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Ex-Nova Head Sahashi Found Guilty of Embezzlement, Asahi Says
The former president of Nova Corp., once Japan’s biggest English-language school operator, was found guilty of embezzlement and sentenced to prison by the Osaka district court, the Asahi newspaper said. The court found today Nozomu Sahashi redirected 320 million yen ($3.4 million) from his employees’ welfare program to the company before its bankruptcy in 2007,…
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Nova chief admits skimming funds
In April 2007, the Supreme Court ruled the way the company calculated its cancellation policies was illegal and ordered Nova Corp. to repay about ¥310,000 to a Tokyo man who received no refund when he canceled his contract. Faced with mounting debts, Sahashi in July 2007 allegedly diverted nearly ¥320 million from an employment benefit…
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Ex-Nova president pleads not guilty
According to the indictment, in July 2007, Sahashi conspired with a 50-year-old Nova executive in charge of finance to embezzle the reserve funds of a mutual aid organization for Nova Group employees chaired by Sahashi. The money was transferred to a bank account of an affiliate company. The prosecutors said that on the night before…
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Nova founder faces trial
The founder of Japan’s failed language school chain Nova went on trial on Monday charged with embezzlement over a scandal that left thousands of foreign teachers without jobs. Nova, whose schools were once ubiquitous across Japanese cities, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2007 after the government ordered it to halt part of its operations over insufficient…
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Ex-Nova president admits to embezzling, but counsel pleads not guilty
The former president of English conversation school operator Nova Corp. admitted to embezzling employment benefit funds shortly before the company went bankrupt at his first court hearing Monday at the Osaka District Court. But defense counsel for Nozomu Sahashi, 57, claimed his actions were in the interest of the employees and do not constitute the…
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Ex-NOVA president admits diverting funds but says it wasn’t embezzlement
[Former Nova President Nozomu] Sahashi is under indictment on charges of embezzlement in the conduct of business for transferring 320 million yen from the account of the employees’ mutual assistance association into another account in July 2007, exchanging the money for a check and placing the funds in an affiliate’s account. A prosecutor said in…
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Berlitz blitz against union bogs down
In December, after a year of strike action by over 100 teachers, the company filed a lawsuit against seven union members. Named in the suit are five Berlitz teachers who volunteer as Berlitz General Union Tokyo (Begunto) executives and two officials from the National Union of General Workers Tokyo Nambu: President Yujiro Hiraga and Louis…
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Panel rules against decision not to indict Nova ex-president
An independent panel formed by court-entrusted citizens has ruled unjust last year’s decision by prosecutors not to slap criminal charges on the failed English conversation school operator Nova Corp. and its former president for failing to pay salaries to foreign instructors and employees, the panel said Tuesday. The decision was made by Osaka’s No. 2…