Ex-Nova president Nozomu Sahashi is going to be arrested and charged for deliberately making his employees work with the full knowledge that his company was going under and that no wages could be paid to the workers:

The labor ministry’s regional bureau is planning to send information to prosecutors possibly later this week on Nozomu Sahashi, former president of bankrupt English-language school chain Nova Corp., on suspicion of nonpayment of wages to language instructors in violation of the Labor Standard Law, informed sources said Monday.

Osaka prefectural police, meanwhile, are also planning to launch investigations, possibly on Tuesday, to build a criminal case against Sahashi, 56, for alleged embezzlement of fringe benefit provisions for employees at what was once the largest English-language school chain in Japan, the sources said.

According to the sources, the wage allegations concern a total of around 100 million yen in salary that should have been paid to around 400 instructors and staffers who worked for Nova nationwide last September and October. The amount represents one of the largest cases of nonpayment of regular wages in Japan.

But in the two-month period, it is known that around 8,000 Nova employees did not receive salary payments totaling 1.8 billion yen, the sources said. Unpaid wages are thought to rise to 4.1 billion yen in all if the period after October, when Nova went bust, is included in the computation.

Sahashi told the labor ministry’s Osaka bureau that he did the best he could to make payments by even using his own personal assets but the bureau concluded that he continued running the company knowing that he would not be able to meet salary payments, the sources said.

The bureau is not seeking responsibility of other executives because Sahashi was in full control of management, the sources said.