Ex-Nova president sentenced to 3 1/2 years for embezzling

Wednesday 26th August, 11:54 PM JST

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TokyoRoughGuy at 01:33 AM JST - 27th August

Hopefully he appeals to a judge who understand he was doing all he could to keep the company running.
Stereofreak at 02:22 AM JST - 27th August

Hopefully he appeals to a judge who understand he was doing all he could to keep the company running.

What, to the detriment of his workers who must be paid as well? So, basically, teachers should just accept this fat cat withhold their wages because of his poor management and greed? It's both illegal and immoral. Hence, we went to prison. It doesn't take a Marxist to know that this is exploitation in the first degree.
IslandFever at 03:45 AM JST - 27th August

I worked at Nova for two months once. It is the single worst company I have ever worked for in my life. And I say that having served in the military and driving a broken down old cab for 8 years once in California. Nova was far far worse. The employees are treated like total s * * t . I would not wish a job there on my worst enemy. Glad to see the back of that place. Also a lot of the gaijin teachers were unbearable. Because they had adoring Japanese students hanging on their every word, they actually started to think they were some kind of minor celebrities, mostly from backwaters in England or Australia, these guys were unbearable snobs and had the worst affectations.

Good riddance to bad rubbish.

There is one thing good to say though, about Nova, it was effective in teaching Japanese to speak English, it's just that the teachers were treated like those Korean and Chinese sex slaves they import to work day and night in Massage parlors and the mizu shobai here.
Molenir at 03:53 AM JST - 27th August

Surprised he got actual jail time. Was expecting to read the standard suspended sentence line. Nice change.
oikawa at 04:57 AM JST - 27th August

This judge has no idea how big business works, heck even small to medium business, you are constantly moving money around to keep things moving in a company

Sorry but that's bull. This money was simply not the company's to use or move around. It was the employees' benefit money. I'm not sure he wouldn't have put it back in if he'd had the chance, but just because a company has access to capital doesn't mean they can just use it as they please. They are in initial control of billions of dollars/yen etc of tax payments but I think the govt. would be pretty pissed off if they used that for a few months to pay employees wages. If an anonymous bank employee accessed your account and "borrowed" 320 million yen's worth of it would you say "OK, no problem, I'm sure you were going to pay it back"? Like hell you would.
Stereofreak at 05:40 AM JST - 27th August

fusedentropy:

That is why Japan is JAPAN and not AMERICA - this, I'm afraid, this is hard for Gaijin to understand as well.

Lovely, just use the "you're foreign so you'll never really understand us" fallacy. Bollocks. I've lived in Japan for a long time and I know exactly how things work - Japan is a country populated by human beings, not some exotic alien race, and everything that happens or has happened in Japan has its equivalent in most every other culture. (And shame on you for assuming that I'm from the US. I'm Chilean. There are many other countries in the world). The whole idea of the "company family" is utter rubbish, and a bit sickening too, especially if you're hiring foreign employees. So the company will give you a pay cut because the bosses can't manage their firm properly. But when things are looking up and the top level is making wads of cash, then do you think the people at the bottom will get huge pay rises too? Just give me one example where this has happened, especially in the English teaching industry. It doesn't.

As for job-hopping, you're right that it's not well looked at in Japan...if you're Japanese, that is. And even then, not getting paid is reason enough to quit, sue and be very angry at your boss. There are laws against this. Yes, even in Japan. The world progressed from feudalism a while back, and no worker should be coerced into thinking they have to put up with this anymore.
biglittleman at 09:29 AM JST - 27th August

@fusedentrophy,

So yes - to the detriment of the company's employees...however, also to his detriment.

If you were familiar with Nova then you would not that most workers were not considered employees or members of a family that is legally and metaphorically. Only the Japanese staff, AAMs and above were full-time employees. Everyone else's (which is the majority) contracts violated many labor laws. Thus there was no protection for them if they got screwed over. That is one of the major reasons Nova would get so much hassle. Then you take into account he shifted his own money overseas as to not be touched. He wasn't going to try and pay all the employees and students back. He was going to try and high-tail it out of here.
Osakadaz at 10:24 AM JST - 27th August

fusedentropy: that view is antiquated in a country in which up to 30% of the population are forced into dead-end freeter jobs.You must have fallen asleep during the bubble.
lilmookie at 10:57 AM JST - 27th August

fusedentropy:

That may be true, but some of us are in a better position to speak about NOVA than others. The funds he was using were employee (staff) funds for weddings and emergencies. To my understanding, about 5mannen was taken out each staff salary monthly. The Japanese staff and instructor shunnin who got married (and had been with the company over 10 years) received merely gosenen when she got married. It is the he took, as he says, to give back as refunds.

I have many Japanese friends who lost money. I know a few people who were tricked into buying over 8000USD worth of tickets two days before they officially announced bankruptcy, long after it was known within the company that it was going down. You are right, small and medium sized companies move money around. That was one of the problems.

NOVA was no longer a small-medium sized company, and Sahashi's management style was not suitable for a large company. He had over 80% of NOVA stock, which effectively made the board useless. If Saryhashi was working so hard to refund students, you might wonder why Saruhashi was paying 3000000 yen monthly rent for the NSbuilding headquarters. That is not the office of a, as you say, small to medium sized company. As for this being Japan, it clearly is- yet everyone I know who was really hurt in this was Japanese. The issues and complaints above were reported by Japanese.

While I respect your viewpoints and I, in large part, understand what you are saying- we aren't all clueless foreigners passing through Japan (though you might not know it reading through this site) Many of us respected what NOVA was trying to do, and worked hard to continue that. There may have been a few schools that served as meat-markets, and more than a few instructors who fancied themselves as playboys, but there were also many with dedicated qualified teachers (not just instructors) who had teaching degrees and loved teaching English.
helloklitty at 11:29 AM JST - 27th August

To my understanding, about 5mannen was taken out each staff salary monthly. The Japanese staff and instructor shunnin who got married (and had been with the company over 10 years) received merely gosenen when she got married.

I assume this explanation is reversed. Contributing 5,000 yen a month and receiving 50,000 for one's wedding is more plausible. Still a rotten deal. I wonder if it was optional. If so, would one get hired if one refused to join the plan.
Triumvere at 11:38 AM JST - 27th August

So the captain goes down with the ship after all... color me surprised.
notimpressed at 01:35 PM JST - 27th August

good riddance to bad rubbish
coffeeman3000 at 05:24 AM JST - 28th August

If all or the majority of Nova employees hated how they were treated, then the Majority would leave Nova - Nova would have no teachers and would have to change and treat their teachers better.

Employees chose to stay and by doing so, accepted the bad treatment. In the end, they had the option to go home to their home country.

The fact is, most people came to Japan to see Japan. Not to work for Nova. However, Nova was sponsoring visas, giving us cash to live on and for many people, putting them up in housing. If someone was here for a year, why run around trying to find another job or give up and go back home just because of their (temporary) job? Half the teachers I worked with worked four hour days and got pretty good money for that.

That's why people didn't rush home in droves and abandon Nova. Sure we accepted some bad treatment, but it doesn't mean it was right or enjoyable for Nova to exploit it as much as they did. So saying everyone who hated it should have just left is a kind of naive.
harmoneeikaiwa at 04:21 PM JST - 28th August

Are some people actually saying he did NO wrong ?
Youdontknow at 07:40 PM JST - 30th August

I worked at Nova ten years ago and it was the worse experience of my entire working life!! They abused the rights of workers, literally stole money by charging the same fee for apartment rent to the three or more staff that shared it, and not to mention the absolute garbage of a text book they palmed off on students! And it's no better now either! G.Communications are still trying to run the same sunken ship!