Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Gold Price Monitor -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Mansfield who wrote (25029)	12/29/1998 12:45:00 PM
From: Gord Bolton	Respond to of 116960

Japan Bank Executives Investigated Monday, December 28, 1998; 1:29 a.m. EST TOKYO (AP) -- Authorities have launched an investigation into possible criminal wrongdoing by executives at three large Japanese banks that failed recently under the weight of bad loans, a newspaper reported Monday. Tokyo prosecutors and police will probe top executives of Nippon Credit Bank Ltd., the Long-Term Credit Bank of Japan Ltd. and Hokkaido Takushoku Bank Ltd., the Asahi newspaper reported. Both agencies refused to comment on the report. Authorities will look into whether management broke any laws as it presided over the banks' demise, the article said. The investigation is highly unusual in Japan, where the stiffest penalty faced by executives is usually a public apology and resignation. A focus of the investigation will be whether executives lied in reporting the size of their banks' problems to investors and officials. Suspicions emerged after the collapse of Hokkaido Takushoku in November 1997, when authorities discovered the bank had bad or risky debts of $21 billion -- three times what the bank had been telling the public. Government auditors have discovered similar discrepancies at Nippon Credit Bank and the Long-Term Credit Bank after they were placed under government control this year. On Friday, the Financial Supervisory Agency announced that its audits had discovered that the country's 17 largest still-functioning banks also had underreported their bad loan problem by as much as $51 billion. © Copyright 1998 The Associated Press