Talk:Sōkaiya

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Possible more info on the subject

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2498445.stm --208.253.80.123 15:01, 29 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Anyone who thinks that corporate extortionists who operate by disrupting annual meetings and regulatory hearings are unique to Japan has never heard of Bruce Marks an affluent corporate gangster located in Boston. http://www.naca.org

The Trillion-Dollar Bank Shakedown That Bodes Ill for Cities by Howard Husock, City Journal Winter 2000

http://www.city-journal.org/html/10_1_the_trillion_dollar.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.240.206.194 (talk) 11:26, 5 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm confused

The article seems to be at one moment saying that the Sokaiya are men who target companies and make them pay them money to go away or keep quiet, but the next it's saying that the companies seek out and use Sokaiya. Which is it? Both? It says the Chisso used sokaiya to stop protesting members after the Minimata scandal, which sounds like the company went and found a bunch of thugs and paid them to come and fill up the meeting to keep the protesters out...that's not guys blackmailing a company, that's a company employing criminals to do dirty work for them. Then at the bottom we have a section called "Companies that have bribed sokaiya", but the list is headed by the sentence "companies who have been found guilty of employing sokaiya"...which is it, bribed or employed? Bribing means you paid them to go away, "employ" suggests that they paid them to do some service for them. Do companies pay sokaiya to go and harass competitors? Or is this just a language problem? And they really punish the companies for paying the sokaiya to go away? What are they supposed to do about it? I also don't understand the part where they "almost managed to get one of their own onto the board of directors"...that doesn't sound like the activities of someone who's trying to blackmail a company. There's obviously a lot missing from this article, because I don't understand it at all. AnnaGoFast (talk) 21:30, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]

The article obviously needs to be developed better, but nothing in there is contradictory. It's rare for a criminal enterprise to engage in only one, very specific form of crime. On their own, sokaiya will try to set up embarrassing situations for companies in an effort to make those companies pay them to go away. Less scrupulous companies may capitalize on those same talents, paying the sokaiya to do that to rival companies, or use them to quash legitimate complaints from their own shareholders.

Paying off sokaiya can be illegal for a number of reasons. In the case of the Mitsubishi execs, they fraudulently claimed they were paying rent - rent on homes that didn't exist. In other cases, it's because they're covering up crimes by paying the sokaiya to not expose them.

Hope that clears things up a little bit.--Xanzzibar (talk) 23:16, 26 April 2016 (UTC)[reply]