The impending doom of Nova is becoming clearer. A recent thread on the Nova Teachers United mailing list stated that staff had not been paid and that bonuses would not be forthcoming:
Nova's stock is worthless scrap paper. This past week saw Nova's share price lose 25% of its value closing at 71 yen. At one point during trading it fell to 69 yen.
When METI handed out its punishment of Nova on June 13, Nova's share price started trading at 98 yen and closed at 88 yen. By the beginning of July, the share price had climbed back over 100 yen and hovered around this price range until Friday, July 20. When trading started on on Monday, the 23rd, the share price opened at 96 yen and kept on falling until it reached 71 yen today.
According to the Asahi Shimbun, Osaka-based ABC Language School suddenly closed its doors at the end of June leaving student refunds and and teacher's salaries in the lurch. A group of students has organized in Osaka to prepare a lawsuit saying that ABC was soliciting contracts even though its business was on the brink of collapse.
Keeping pace in Japan is running a 7-part series called "The Truth About AEON" on the ins and outs of working for AEON, the not-too-distant relative of GEOS.
It's worth a read if you're thinking of working for AEON. The series has been deja vu for me. I found myself identifying with a lot of what the author, Turner, writes.
News of NOVA's punishment has been widely reported in the media. The nuts and bolts are are this: For a period of six months, NOVA will not be able solicit, accept, or conclude any new contracts exceeding one year. This means no contracts for courses more than a year or courses longer than 70 hours. Existing contracts are not affected by METI's punishment.
The media has covered the basics. Here's The Japan Times:
According to the Asahi Shimbun, NOVA has been ordered by the Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry to partially suspend operations for six months during which NOVA will not be able solicit, accept, or conclude any new contracts exceeding one year. METI found NOVA's behavior to be in violation of the Specific Commercial Transaction Law.
This is from last week's Classifieds in the Japan Times, but it's a keeper. Eikaiwa is fraught with tales of low pay, insane students, insane managers, and general stupidity that would make Scott Adams drool with excitement.
NOVA is back in the news again with articles in the Yomiuri and Asahi shimbun detailing how NOVA just can't make its problems go away. These are quick-and-dirty translations, so if I've gone horribly wrong somewhere, let me know.
I stumbled upon an interesting nugget concerning NOVA's recent legal troubles. If you read this article on Nikkei BP Net [in Japanese], as a result of NOVA's loss in the Supreme Court, METI has tightened its interpretation of the Specific Commercial Transaction Law and is now not even allowing a "rational" reason to recalculate service costs when providing a refund.
