| Dealings; chairman; share records; meted out; fabricated; sentence; summing up; insider trading; gravity; resorts; prison; ostracized; construction; shareholders; fined. |
Tycoon avoids prison over shares scam
Japanese courts have meted out a strangely lenient sentence to a business tycoon who was once listed in Forbes magazine as the world’s richest man. Yoshiaki Tsutsumi was found guilty of insider trading and falsifying his company’s share records by a court in Tokyo. Presiding judge Tsutomu Tochigi said: “The impact on society of crimes by such leading Japanese companies is very serious”. Judge Tochigi then proceeded to hand out a sentence wholly incommensurate with the gravity of the crime expressed in his summing up. He fined Mr. Tsutsumi a paltry $43,000 – chicken feed to someone of his vast wealth – and sentenced him to 30 months in prison, suspended for four years. It is highly unlikely Tsutsumi will serve any of that time.
Tsutsumi’s fall from grace has been swift, although he does not quite prove the adage “the bigger they are, the harder they fall,” judging from his light court sentencing. The judge said he was not sent to prison because he has already been socially ostracized. Tsutsumi is the former chairman of Kokudo Corporation, the core firm of the Seibu railway group, with holdings in construction, hotels, resorts and a baseball team. He is one of Japan's most powerful industrialists and has close connections to many of the country’s leading politicians. In September 2004, Tsutsumi lied about his stake in his company and fabricated hundreds of non-existent shareholders. The subsequent sale of shares from his shady dealings lined his own pockets to the tune of $180,000,000.
Match the following synonyms from the article.
| meted out lenient falsifying incommensurate chicken feed fall from grace adage ostracized non-existent shady | awarded light fabricating at odds peanuts demise saying snubbed bogus unethical |
Match the following phrases from the article (sometimes more than one combination is possible).
| courts have meted found guilty of insider trading and a paltry chicken feed to to 30 months in prison Tsutsumi’s fall from the bigger they are socially fabricated hundreds of his shady dealings | out a strangely lenient sentence falsifying his company’s share records $43,000 someone of his vast wealth suspended for four years grace has been swift the harder they fall ostracized non-existent shareholders lined his own pockets |
Unit 12
KRISPY KREME IN DONUT WAR OVER RECIPE
