IT WAS all lies and deceit.
The opponents of the controversial gambling billionaire Kazuo Okada said as much about his allegations against them.
“True to his nature,” said Universal Entertainment Corp in a statement sent to republicasia, “Kazuo Okada played the victim card once again, using lies and deceit to sway the public on the true state of Universal Entertainment Corp., Tiger Resort Asia Ltd., and Tiger Resort Leisure and Entertainment Inc.
UEC issued the statement in response to an interview Okada granted republicasia published on December 1 where Okada said he had been fooled by these people.
He named his business partners Hajime Tokuda, Okada Manila director, and Jun Fujimoto, CEO and Representative director of the Universal Entertainment Corp, which controls Tiger Resort.
Both camps have sued each other in court, from US to Hongkong to Manila.
Okada said the two duped him of millions, only to kick him out of the Okada empire to cover the fraud.
In the statement, Universal called Okada’s allegations “slanderous”, all meant to “discredit” the reputation of the people who exposed him.
The allegations are all “far from the truth,” it said. “He is trying to discredit their reputations as proficient business leaders.”
Kazuo Okada’s claims that Fujimoto plotted his ouster to supposedly cover up a $43.5-million remittance in May 2012 is preposterous. The remittance was approved by the UEC Board of Directors for company use, including Kazuo Okada himself.
“It was, in fact, Kazuo Okada himself that embezzled money from UEC, TRAL, and TRLEI. This fact has been established from the numerous decisions from the Tokyo District Court, Tokyo High Court, and the Japanese Supreme Court,” the statement said.
Okada’s expulsion from OHL, UEC, and TRAL stems from his sloppy multimillion-dollar corporate heist, mismanaging company funds and using them for personal gain. So far, we have uncovered that Kazuo Okada has stolen US 17 million from shareholders, the statement said.
Okada said he bailed out Fujimoto’s previous company called Seta from bankruptcy.
“In reality, Fujimoto sold his Seta shares to UEC, making it a subsidiary of the UEC Group. Years after, Kazuo Okada liquidated Seta,” the statement said.
“Kazuo Okada, who has various pending cases in six jurisdictions around the world, seeks to discredit Fujimoto and Tokuda by spreading lies — all of which could be easily disproved through public records and company reports.
“To set the records straight, Kazuo Okada was ousted from the board of directors of Okada Holdings Ltd. (OHL) in 2017, a corporate decision based on the Trust Agreement effective in the next 30 years that the Supreme Court of Japan upheld as valid,” the statement said.
Based in Hong Kong, OHL is the controlling shareholder of UEC, which in turn owns TRAL, the 99.9- percent owner of TRLEI.
He is also neither a member of the board of UEC nor TRAL.
Tomohiro Okada, the son of Kazuo Okada, owns a majority stake in OHL by virtue of a Trust Agreement with his sister Hiromi Okada. The said agreement has been upheld by no less than the Japanese Supreme Court with concurrence from the Hong Kong Court.
Kazuo Okada is truly in the business of spreading lies and deceit. However, no matter how much a lie is being told, the truth shall always prevail. Our lawyers are now evaluating any legal recourse that we may avail against him.
Contacted for comment, Okada’s interpreter Motoya Nakamura told RepublicAsia that on the contrary the two have the ones spreading lies against Okada.
“They call him a liar of course because they want to protect themselves,” Motoya said.
