Livedoor Company

The self-styled rebel of Japanese business was convicted today of breaking securities laws after a prosecution that many here saw as an attempt by the corporate establishment to snuff out a financial upstart whose only crime was his refusal to play by traditional rules. The Tokyo District Court found fallen Internet mogul Takafumi Horie guilty of misleading markets about the financial health of his Livedoor business empire to drive up its stock price.

Japan's best-known shareholder activist, fund manager Yoshiaki Murakami, said today that he expected to be charged with insider trading and would resign immediately from his fund.

Once an icon for a new generation of Japanese go-go capitalists, fallen Internet mogul Takafumi Horie on Monday declared himself not guilty of accusations that he masterminded a scheme to falsify corporate earnings and inflate stock prices.

The entire leadership of Japan's biggest opposition party will step down after a party member falsely accused the son of a ruling party leader of financial links with disgraced Internet company Livedoor, news reports said today.

The agreement last week that ended one of Japan's most bitterly fought takeover battles left many people wondering what it had all been for. Fuji TV and Livedoor hammered out a deal that allows both groups to meet their respective objectives to some extent, but at considerable cost.

Takafumi Horie, the former CEO of the Internet firm Livedoor Co. who came to symbolize a freewheeling capitalism that challenged Japan's corporate norms, pleaded not guilty today to charges of breaking securities laws.