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Livedoor trial commences today

"For Horie, the trial is a great opportunity. He's been locked up until now ... but in court, he can make his case fair and square."

Yasuyuki Takai, a lawyer for Livedoor founder Takafumi Horie

Former Japanese Internet entrepreneur Takafumi Horie and his defense team are confident he will be cleared of securities laws violation charges, one lawyer said yesterday, a day before the trial is due to begin at a Tokyo court.

Horie, 33, founder and former president of Internet startup Livedoor Co, is suspected, together with his former executives, of falsifying earnings data to inflate stock prices and other securities laws violations.

But the prosecutors' case against Japan's former dotcom hero is farfetched and won't stand in court, Yasuyuki Takai, one of Horie's lawyers, said in an interview aired yesterday on TV Asahi.

"The charges are very far-fetched," Takai said.

"Horie is prepared to argue his innocence" when his trial opens today at Tokyo District Court, he said. "I believe we will win," he said.

Prosecutors say Horie and other Livedoor executives, arrested earlier this year, used dubious methods to buy up other companies, set up dummy companies to hide losses and jack up the capital value of their group companies in 2004.

Livedoor is suspected of pretending to have an affiliate acquire a company that was already under its control and selling stock in that company to doctor its books, prosecutors say.

Horie has repeatedly denied the allegations, while four other Livedoor executives who are being tried separately have reportedly admitted to some charges.

Analysts have said that key to the trial is how much Horie knew about such antics and whether he was aware of wrongdoing or if he had conspired with the other executives to fabricate results, as prosecutors contend.

But Takai said Horie was prepared to argue none of Livedoor's executives were guilty.

"Horie is not saying he alone did not do these things. He's saying [Livedoor executives] did not," he said.

Takai also said Horie was looking forward to his day in court.

"For Horie, the trial is a great opportunity. He's been locked up until now ... but in court, he can make his case fair and square," Takai said.

Before his arrest in January, Horie, a chubby T-shirt-and-slacks-wearing self-made millionaire whose bold takeover attempts earned him both adulation and contempt, was a media darling touted as a beacon for a bolder generation of entrepreneurs.

His popular Internet company, founded in 1997, gobbled up firms by the dozens, and forced Japan's largest media company into a reluctant alliance after launching an unprecedented hostile takeover bid.

Horie also ran, albeit unsuccessfully, for parliament last year with the blessings of Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi.

But a raid on Livedoor's Tokyo offices by prosecutors in January -- televised live on nationwide TV -- shocked the nation and triggered a sell-off of Livedoor stocks that led to a plunge in Tsokyo shares dubbed "Livedoor shock."

If convicted, Horie faces a maximum penalty of five years in prison or ?5 million (US$42,000) in fines, or both.
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