Case 41: Livedoor (Japan, 2006)

• Prof. Dr. Klaus Henselmann
• Dr. Stefan Hofmann

The Livedoor saga is probably one of the most eye-catching episodes in Japan’s corporate history. Never before has a home-grown Japanese entrepreneur fallen so far and so fast as Takafumi Horie, the flamboyant 33-year-old businessman who had turned his internet company Livedoor into a household name. For many younger Japanese, Horie represented a new model of entrepreneurship, expanding a USD 50,000 start-up into a conglomerate worth USD 6 billion at its peak. But in January 2006, Livedoor’s offices were raided by prosecutors after allegations of financial impropriety surfaced, and Takafumi Horie was subsequently arrested. He was accused of market manipulation and accounting fraud; prosecutors depicted him as a greedy and lawless figure who had manipulated the books to inflate his company’s stock price. The trial was closely watched in Japan, not only because Horie was a celebrity, but also because it was seen as a test of how serious the authorities were about enforcing rules fairly. The Livedoor case came to symbolize Japanese efforts to deal with white-collar crime.

Seiten 240 - 243