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September 28,1999
 "Kinyufushokuretto, Jubaku (Financially Corroded Island, Spellbound)" filmed by Toei Co.,Ltd. is now making a hit. It needs no explanation that its story is modeled on a series of cases of Dai-ichi Kangyo Bank offering and receiving unlawful profit, happened in 1997. The two fearful words, 'sokaiya' and 'jubaku' so frequently used by the mass media to cover those cases, have become in vogue among the people since then. Mr. Ishigami, who got involved in Ajinomoto case, writes an article (from page 34 to 39) about 'spellbinding' in a monthly magazine, 'Zaikai-jin', from which we excerpt for your reference. ：  Someone concerned with the bank, when the above-mentioned cases being disclosed by the police, first used this word 'jubaku'(spellbinding). I cannot but think, however, that such spellbound situation has been created by the police, and by the mass media that do nothing but repeat what is announced by the police or arrange it for their own sake. For example, the police announced that sokaiyas are still quite active in spite of the fact that the number of them has gone down to approximately 600 this year. It is rather inconsistent that the police should announce only their number without giving the definition of 'sokaiya'. The longer I worked in the general affairs section, the more difficult I felt it to explain 'sokaiya'. If they are what are said to be in general, I estimate them at only 50 at most. Judging from the articles about the situation of the stockholders' meetings in magazines, there exists not more than 50 of them. And among them those active may be only 7, or 8. Supposing there were 600 of them, and as reported by the mass media 4,500 policemen had been called out to guard the meeting places on the day of stockholders' general meetings simultaneously held throughout Japan, it comes out that one policeman would have been keeping watch over 7 or 8 sokaiyas. If you follow my estimation of about 50, nearly 100 each sturdy policemen would have been on the alert against just one sokaiya. The police will not call out such a large number of policemen in order to guard against even a group of racketeers, so-called 'boryokudan' who possibly carry guns with them. Moreover, we've never heard any sokaiyas being arrested for raising an uproar. Then, what had brought them to have so many policemen on alert? I wonder if they are trying to make a show that sokaiyas are so frightful and dangerous that we have to maintain such strict control over them. The mass media stir it up, and then the general public are 'spellbound' by such a make-believe. It is prescribed by the Commercial Code that the chairperson is authorized to take charge of the meeting site. However, there has been no case reported where the police is requested to rush to a meeting place to take emergency steps by any chairperson. The police will say that they were on the alert at the meeting sites at the request of the companies. In fact, the situation is on the contrary. The companies were forced to call for the police to guard the sites. General stockholders are surprised to see the meeting place heavily guarded by so many policemen, and give up attending the meeting. As a matter of fact, in Ajinomoto, a lot of stockholders, some of who certainly attend the meeting in want of a souvenir passed out after the meeting, turned away at the entrance when they saw so many policemen guarding the place. (The middle part omitted) ：  The circumstances surrounding private enterprises and their stockholders' meetings are now in the period of transition. When business rallies completely in the future, I wonder what will follow. Recently a group of people and organizations whose character or true purposes are quite unfamiliar to the general public or even to enterprises have increased in number, such as stockholder ombudsmen, stockholders who introduce themselves as a group of citizens, a group of people supporting a movement against building nuclear power plants, lawyers who talk enterprises into buying at a high price the know-how video tapes which they produced to show how to manage the stockholders' general meetings safely and in a short period of time, or a group of people who buy stocks for stockholders' representative suit. And stockholders' representative action itself is not well known to the general public yet. Moreover, there exist some groups of people who swindle enterprises out of money, claiming it to be the charge for the advertisement they put in their own economic magazines. They often write articles about some enterprises, sometimes scandalous, other times full of praise, for which they threaten them into paying some money. Others collect money from companies under the pretext of contribution for settling social welfare problems and environmental issues. If we include such people as above among 'sokaiyas', their number may reach 600. The police authorities themselves have not yet arrived at the true state of affairs about them. It is up to you whether you believe the information I have gathered as a person in charge of stockholders in the general affairs department, but I can surely say that such groups of people are the very antisocial ones that are exploiting enterprises. Have you ever seen any video tapes of a sham stockholders' meeting produced by some lawyers? Some of them were introduced partly in TV programs. In these video tapes, usually lawyers play the role of a sokaiya, and take the floor in the sham meeting. Frankly speaking, however, in reality, I have never seen any such evil-looking sokaiyas, nor seen them speak so rudely. At any rate, do they honestly think it possible to control the meeting successfully depending on the chairperson's steering ability? It is outrageous that they should palm off such tapes on companies. Or do they have any ulterior motives --- for example, to get more chances to work as a lawyer because more stockholders' representative actions are supposed to be raised? I dare to tell you that even a word such as 'police-sokaiya' has appeared in some economic magazines lately. Behind this, there must be the problem of appointment of so many former police officials to important posts in private companies. The private sector must also tackle such problems. (The rest omitted) ： 
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