OSAKA -- The Osaka District Court has temporarily decided not to seize the assets of 11 former and current executives of Daiwa Bank who were ordered last week to pay the bank $775 million in compensation, sources familiar with the case said Tuesday.
The court's injunction is in response to pleas from the Daiwa executives, who were ordered to pay compensation for massive losses stemming from unauthorized securities trading at the bank's New York branch over an 11-year period from 1984.
The 11 executives on Friday appealed the district court's ruling ordering them to pay the redress.
Together with the appeal, the executives also filed a plea with the court to suspend the seizure of their assets. The plaintiffs have said they will soon take steps to seize the assets, which include deposits, real estate and salaries.
The ruling permits the provisional seizure of the defendants' assets. The assets of defendants in a lawsuit can be seized even if a ruling is not established so that they cannot be spent before being used to pay compensation.
The court last Wednesday ordered the 11, including current President Takashi Kaiho, former Chairman Sumio Abekawa, former President Akira Fujita and former New York branch manager Masahiro Tsuda, to pay the compensation -- the largest amount ever awarded in a compensation case filed by shareholders against individual executives in Japan.