TOKYO -- The insider trading trial of Yoshiaki Murakami, a trade
ministry bureaucrat turning high-flying fund manager, ended on Tuesday
with Murakami and his lawyers protesting his innocence in buying
shares of Nippon Broadcasting Inc. (NBS), a radio broadcasting sub of
the Fuji TV network.
Murakami
admitted hearing from Takafumi Horie, the former prexy of Internet
start-up Livedoor, about his plan to snap up a large chunk of NBS
shares as part of a takeover bid, but claimed he thought Horie's
chances of success were slim.
Arrested last June, Murakami at
first admitted to reporters his involvement in the scheme, but changed
his tune with the start of his trial and has stoutly maintained his
innocence ever since.
The Tokyo District Court will hand down its decision on July 19.
Prosecutors
have asked for a three-year prison sentence for Murakami, together with
a Y3 million ($24,793) fine. They also want him to cough up the alleged
Y1.1 billion ($9.09 million) he made on insider trading.
Murakami
is charged with using info from Horie to score a windfall profit from
Livedoor's purchases of shares in the Nippon Broadcasting System, a
radio broadcasting sub of the Fuji TV web, in 2004 and 2005. The
penalty he is being asked to pay is the largest in the history of
Japanese insider trading cases. According to prosecutors, Horie told
Murakami about Livedoor's plan to acquire a block of NBS shares as a
preliminary to a takeover bid for Fuji TV itself as early as November 8
or 9, 2004. MAC Asset Management, an investing company that Murakami
ran out of Singapore, then proceeded to buy up 1.93 million NBS shares
for about Y9.95 billion ($82.2 million).
After Livedoor revealed
that has acquired a 35 percent stake in NBS in February, 2005, MAC
Asset sold off its NBS shares, reaping a Y3 billion ($24.8 million)
profit.
In June 2006, just before his arrest, Murakami told
reporters that he had prior knowledge of the Livedoor stock buy, but
after his trial started in December he said he had lied to protect MAC
Asset employees from legal consequences. Horie, who was sentenced to 18
months in prison in March for finagling Livedoor's profit statements to
boost its stock price, has testified on Murakami's behalf, saying that
he did not make the final decision on the NBS share purchase until just
before the February 2005 announcement.
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