The Miyazaki District Court on Monday ruled that Miyazaki Gov. Suketaka Matsukata does not have to return 6 billion yen in subsidies the prefecture provided to the Seagaia resort complex a year before it went bankrupt.
Seagaia filed for court protection in February 2001 with liabilities of 326.1 billion yen. It was taken over by U.S. investment fund Ripplewood Holdings LLC later the same year.
The ruling came in a suit filed in May 2001 by 723 residents of the prefecture who noted that the company's main banks had stopped extending new loans to the firm in September 1999.