TMCnet News
Livedoor Marketing poised to admit criminal charges: president+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, April 27_(Kyodo) _ Livedoor Marketing Co. said Thursday it will plead guilty in court to charges that the advertising subsidiary of disgraced Internet services firm Livedoor Co. violated the securities law. Livedoor Marketing President Satoshi Hoyano said in a press conference that the company is making efforts to publicly offer its shares again. The comments followed the decision by the Tokyo Stock Exchange on April 14 to delist the stocks of Livedoor Marketing and its parent firm. "As all the facts are getting known, we are poised to admit (the charges)," Hoyano said. Hoyano appealed he wants to separate the management of Livedoor Marketing from that of Livedoor, and that he will not meet founder and former president of Livedoor, Takafumi Horie, who was released on bail Thursday. Prosecutors had arrested Horie and the group's other former executives for the charges including market manipulation and accounting frauds. Investigators have indicted Livedoor Marketing as a company. Hoyano said Livedoor Marketing has almost confirmed the prosecutors' charges as a fact after an in-house probe found the company had booked as sales the proceeds from some transactions that should not have been booked as such. The board of the company on Thursday approved corrections in its earnings report for the year through December 2004, he said. As for the 29.3 percent stake Livedoor holds in Livedoor Marketing, Hoyano said, "We will discuss it with Livedoor" and call on the parent to give up the shares within this year. |