(Article courtesy M. Update on 2-Channel lawsuit and Defendant Nishimura’s continuing lam. More on this issue at https:\/\/www.debito.org\/2channelsojou.html –Arudou Debito in Vancouver)<\/p>\n
Operator of notorious bulletin board lost in cyber space
\nMainichi Daily News, Oct 10, 2006<\/p>\n
http:\/\/mdn.mainichi-msn.co.jp\/waiwai\/news\/20061010p2g00m0dm020000c.html<\/p>\n
All sorts of mail is bulging out of the postbox, but the thick wads of legal
\nletters stand out. A peep inside through the windows of the Tokyo apartment
\nprovides no hint that anybody has lived inside for a while.<\/p>\n
It’s the home of Hiroyuki Nishimura, the 29-year-old webmaster of
\nNi-Chaneru, the huge bulletin board that is arguably the Japanese language
\nInternet’s most popular — and most notorious — site.<\/p>\n
Nishimura has been reported by Japan’s tabloid media as “missing” — with
\nthe strong implication that he’d run away from massive debts brought on by a
\nhuge number of lost lawsuits that he consistently refused to contest by
\nshowing up in court. But the women’s weekly says it has managed to track him
\ndown and find out about the rumors of his disappearance.<\/p>\n
“I’m just hanging out like I always do,” Nishimura tells AERA with a blog
\nposting that serves as answers to its e-mailed questions.<\/p>\n
Nishimura defends his decision not to contest the myriad of lawsuits filed
\nagainst Ni-Chaneru.<\/p>\n
“I’ve been sued in the north as far as Hokkaido and the south as far as
\nOkinawa. It’s simply not possible to attend every court case where I’ve been
\nnamed as a defendant. I figure if I can defend myself in every case, it’s
\nexactly the same as not turning up in my defense,” he tells the weekly
\nindirectly.<\/p>\n
[ED’S NOTE: HUH??]<\/p>\n
Nishimura also strongly denies suggestions that he’s gone bankrupt, which
\nmany have speculated may be the main reason nobody seems able to find him
\nnow.<\/p>\n
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he writes when questioned about
\nhis financial state.<\/p>\n
AERA, however, begs to disagree. It says that Nishimura, as Ni-Chaneru’s
\nadministrator, was sued in May by a man claiming to have been defamed on the
\nbulletin board by postings listing his name and accusing him of molestation
\nand bankruptcy. The man was seeking to have Nishimura release details of
\nthose who had posted the messages on the site. Nishimura did not turn up in
\ncourt for the case, nor did he accept the injunction ordering him to make
\nthe information available.<\/p>\n
“I asked the court to impose a fine of 50,000 yen for every day he failed to
\ncomply and it did. He already owes more than 2 million yen,” the plaintiff
\ntells AERA. “Because he hasn’t paid that, I applied to have him declared
\nbankrupt.”<\/p>\n
Unlike companies, which are regularly shut down by creditors, it’s rare for
\na creditor to bring about an individual’s bankruptcy. But Nishimura now
\nfaces the prospect of a receiver being appointed to look into his financial
\naffairs and selling off whatever he has to repay what he owes, according to
\nthe weekly.<\/p>\n
The plaintiff took the drastic step because Ni-Chaneru has consistently
\nrefused to pay up when courts have declared it a loser in court cases. It
\nhas already been ordered to fork out more than 20 million yen over lost
\nlawsuits.<\/p>\n
“If they put the Ni-Chaneru domain up for auction, it’d reap tens of
\nmillions of yen for sure,” the man tells AERA. “There’s bound to be a
\ncompany out there that would buy it.”<\/p>\n
It’s still unsure whether the court will order a receiver be appointed to
\noversee Nishimura’s finances. Surely, he wouldn’t be able to ignore the
\ncourts again if that happened? Others who’ve won court cases against him
\naren’t so sure.<\/p>\n
“We tried everything from property seizures to forced execution of rulings,
\nbut we could get no more than 2 million yen,” says a spokesman from DHC, a
\ncosmetic company awarded 7 million yen in a court battle with Nishimura.
\n“We’d welcome the chance to get more if bankruptcy proceedings go ahead, but
\nhave our doubts about whether this will really happen.”<\/p>\n
A lawyer involved in a number of Ni-Chaneru-related lawsuits says that the
\ncurrent attack on Nishimura is nothing new.<\/p>\n
“People have suggested bankruptcy proceedings before,” the lawyer says. “The
\nissue revolves around whether the court will recognize him as bankrupt with
\ndebts of only a few million yen. It might be different if everybody who’s
\nwon court cases against him joined forces and fought together.”<\/p>\n
Even then it’s no certainty — Ni-Chaneru’s revenue is all controlled
\ncompletely by a separate advertising company, making the bulletin board’s
\naccounts something of a black hole.<\/p>\n
“If the receiver can get their hands on that,” the plaintiff tells AERA,
\n“everything will become totally clear.” (By Ryann Connell)<\/p>\n
October 10, 2006<\/p>\n
More on this issue at
\nhttps:\/\/www.debito.org\/2channelsojou.html
\nENDS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
2-Channel’s Defendant Nishimura: “I’ve been sued in the north as far as Hokkaido and the south as far as Okinawa. It’s simply not possible to attend every court case where I’ve been named as a defendant. I figure if I can defend myself in every case, it’s exactly the same as not turning up in my defense,” he tells the weekly indirectly. Nishimura also strongly denies suggestions that he’s gone bankrupt, which many have speculated may be the main reason nobody seems able to find him
\nnow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21,15,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-21","category-lawsuits","category-media"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.debito.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}