To: Guild Master Nozaki Ichimoto
From: Tawa Katana Imperial Office of Council and Legal Affairs
Honored Guild Master,
How very astute of you, yes there was one section redacted from the ruling, the subject of the section had to do with issues of Kusari security that were brought up by the GMG/Kishiro deal, and will be kept classified due to it's national security implications.
To: Guild Master Nozaki Ichimoto
From: Tawa Katana Imperial Office of Council and Legal Affairs
Guild Master,
The redacted portion of the judgment has nothing to do with the legal interpretation of the Contract. It has to do with issues that arise from the Kusari Naval Forces and the Kusari State Polices role in the operations of Kusari corporations.
Sender: GMG Guild Master Nozaki Ichimoto
To: Tawa Katana
CC: The Council of the Rising Sun
Subject: Distribution of GMG Fuels
Tawa Katana e,
The Distribution Clause: The distributor(s) have exclusive rights to transport GMG products as outlined in "Products" from all GMG-owned stations to distributor(s) designated territories.
The court reads this section to mean that Kishiro has exclusive, meaning no other parties are allowed to participate, rights to move GMG product, from GMG bases to all the territories listed within the section on territory, which for Kishiro includes all of Kusari and Liberty. This section clearly makes a distinction between "bases" and "territory." The Court can see no reason for the language use, except to see bases as bases, and territory as the space of the systems listed.
The court validates the clear wording of the Distribution Clause, which clearly defines the rights of the distributors to exclusively transport products to their designated territories, which is entirely distinct from the exclusive transportation of products through their designated territories. By ignoring transportation through a territory, the court inherently conceded that Kusari has no jurisdiction over it. When queried to where he or she is "transporting to," a vessel's captain will respond with its destination, not its path. A Republican vessel transporting to New Berlin from Okinawa is not transporting GMG product to Honshu, only through Honshu.
Kishiro possesses exclusive rights to transport GMG product from GMG stations through any territory to its territory of exclusivity, just as Republican possesses exclusive rights to transport GMG product from GMG stations through any territory to its territory of exclusivity. Nowhere is Kishiro given any regulatory oversight regarding products transported through Kusari to destinations outside of Kusari or Liberty, and cannot pass on the Kusari government a regulatory oversight that Kishiro does not possess to begin with. Both Kishiro and RepEx agreed to the distinction between transport to a territory and transport through a territory by agreeing to a contract that makes such a distinction. No party to any contract is ever lawfully entitled to a one-sided, post-hoc revision of the contract through the unilateral means of a secret court. Such a thing is a subversion of the rule of law.
The sudden and surprising appearance of the alleged "advisory judgment" at a most convenient moment is ultimately inconsequential, as there are no records of any GMG representatives being in attendance of such a court proceeding. The Gas Miners Guild governs itself according to the rule of law and mutually negotiated agreements, not one-sided, "classified" rulings created by secret courts whose proceedings are closed to one of the parties involved in the legal action. Such proceedings are the antithesis of both due process of law and equality before the law, which are principles that have governed every legitimate legal proceeding for centuries, and have now been casually cast aside in favor of financial benefit and political leverage.
Attempting to legally reinterpret the Enforcement Clause without the participation of the Gas Miners Guild to encompass the possession of products entirely for the convenience of Kishiro is not a legal ruling, but is instead a de facto renegotiation of a private contract without the participation or even notification of one of the parties to the contract. This is unprecedented in the annals of law, and threatens to invalidate the contractual obligations of all businesses within Kusari by casting them into an abyss of doubt bridged only by a secretive and convenient court proceeding. Under such circumstances, no business interest can conduct its operations in good faith under the aegis of Kusari law, because the Kusari legal system itself is undermining justice, law, and truth in an obvious and coordinated attempt to provide leverage for the government's foreign policy.
A revocation of this unprecedented intrusion into the Gas Miners Guild's private agreements can be the only possible prelude to any future negotiations with the Kusari government. If the Kusari government is willing to secretly rewrite private contracts for the purposes of foreign policy leverage, then how can any foreign entity have confidence in the validity or sanctity of future agreements with either the Kusari state or its corporations?
Kishiro's actions in soliciting the decision of a secretive Kusari court to invent new language for insertion into a privately arranged contract in order to gain advantages through statist force which it could not gain through a negotiated agreement is an act of bad faith and duplicity that casts serious doubt on the ability of the Gas Miners Guild to consider any future partnerships with Kishiro. The complicity of the Kusari government in this unprecedented intrusion likewise undermines the credibility of any other Kusari corporation's word by creating an expectation of future backroom double dealing which no legitimate business concern would willingly subject itself to.
In order for the Gas Miners Guild to consider future cooperation with Kusari, it is necessary for the Kusari government to uphold the clear original intent of mutually negotiated contracts and treaties, and not rely on privately administered courts to insert new language into those agreements after they have been ratified, starting with the modification of the Legal Codex to correctly reflect the Distribution Agreement's distinction between "transport to" and "transport through" as it was agreed upon by all signatories and as the Kusari court implicitly defined.
I present this gift to Your Imperial Highness, an ancient antique that has been meticulously cleaned and is now flawless.
To: Guild Master Nozaki Ichimoto
From: Tawa Katana Imperial Office of Council and Legal Affairs
Honored Guild Master,
I think you need a course to brush up on the topic of Law, Kusari law in particular. A Advisory Judgment is requested by the government, when it wishes to find out whether actions it will take are legal under Kusari law. This was not a trial, the GMG were not kept out, this was the Executive of House Kusari, asking the Judiciary of House Kusari, it's opinion on the legality of it's plan of action. The Court gave an advisory ruling that it found the actions of the Government to be within Kusari law. This was not a trial, and the sides were not represented, it's scope is limited to advising the Council of the Rising Suns on what actions are legal and what are not.
One last point, your argument between the words 'through" and "to," I just have to point out that it is impossible to go through Kusari without going to Kusari, as is pointed out by the Court, the classification of "Territory" includes all space and stations within the area, if a ship is in that area, it is clearly going to that area, even if it is to eventually move to somewhere else. As an attorney for the Council of the Rising Suns, I find no legal backing for your claim that ships moving through Kusari territory, and not moving to Kusari territory, even if it is not their final destination.
One last legal point of note. The Honshu system, and all of it, is sovereign territory of Kusari, and the Kusari government may impose whatever restrictions it finds appropriate on trade in that System.
The GMG is more than welcome to explore it's legal options, that is up to you, and I am sure your office of legal affairs is more than capable of filing the needed briefs, but the legal process is long and costly, and it is my opinion, as well as that of the Emperor that the most expedient and effective way of dealing with this issue would be through a negotiated settlement. So once again, I will repeat the Emperors request that the GMG return to the negotiating table with the Kusari government.
As always, I am here to answer any legal questions you may have, but I would ask you to direct any political questions to the Council of the Rising Suns itself.
Quote:Both Kishiro and RepEx agreed to the distinction between transport to a territory and transport through a territory by agreeing to a contract that makes such a distinction.
Kishiro Technologies has not agreed to this part of the deal as there is clearly no mention of the difference in the contract.
Sender: GMG Guild Master Nozaki Ichimoto
To: Tawa Katana
CC: The Council of the Rising Sun
Subject: Distribution of GMG Fuels
Tawa Katana e,
To transport to somewhere requires that to be your final destination, but to transport through somewhere means that you are transporting elsewhere; the two are completely distinct. It may be true that if you transport to somewhere, that will include going through somewhere else, but if you are going through somewhere, then where you are going to is not the same as where you are going through at the moment.
If one is transporting cargo to Rheinland, and is currently within Okinawa, one is not transporting to Kusari, one is transporting through Kusari to Rheinland.
Under the actual meaning of the rhetoric of the Distribution Agreement, a Deep Space Engineering transport would be permitted to transport Hfuel from Okinawa to Coronado, regardless of the route taken, as Coronado is not within the the territory of exclusivity for either Kishiro or Republican.
If GMG had intended to give regulatory control to Kishiro over transport through Kusari or Liberty, then the word "through" would have been used in the context. The specific and explicit use of the term "to", instead of "through" in the contract, demonstrates that the regulatory control to be exercised by both Kishiro and RepEx pertains solely to shipments having destinations within their zones of exclusivity. In short, under no logical or legitimate linguistic interpretation does the term "to" in the contract include the meaning of the term "through".
No entity other than the mutual signatories to the contract may subsequently change the terms of the contract, and the redefinition of clear contractual terms constitutes a material change to the contract itself. An attempt to impose such a change constitutes a breach of the contract itself.
At this time, a demonstration of good faith would be for Kishiro to build upon our beneficial relationship and foundation of trust by allowing this matter to be fully adjudicated rather than relying on an incontestable legal opinion.
I formally submit an appeal to Your Imperial Highness to delay any action on the Court's legal opinion, temporarily overturning the GMG product regulations in Kusari space until a full legal hearing can be completed and the outstanding matter of Kusari's relationship in the Okinawa system can be fully settled.
Sender: GMG Guild Master Nozaki Ichimoto
To: The Council of the Rising Sun
Subject: Distribution of GMG Fuels
It is only upon a foundation of a reliance in the good faith intentions of Kusari towards the Gas Miners Guild that future negotiations on any matters between GMG, Kusari, and Kusari corporations may proceed. A reliance upon reinterpretive and convenient legal opinions as a means of compromising GMG's clear contractual commitments completely undermines this foundation and is an insurmountable obstacle to any future agreements. The Gas Miners Guild has full faith that the Emperor of Kusari will commit his government to a path that leads both GMG and Kusari towards mutual understanding, cooperation, and trust, by rejecting Kishiro's obvious attempt to gain through means of state power what it could not gain through mutual agreement with the Gas Miner's Guild. If not, then GMG cannot enter into any agreements with Kusari or its corporations without the expectation of similar one sided incidents in the future, which is an expectation that the Emperor would reject if imposed upon Kusari by any other House or outside entity, and must therefore logically acknowledge to be a corner stone of every other entity's own policies.
Sadly I do not see how not interpreting the law as you wish it to be interpreted makes it wrong Nozaki Ichimoto. The very fact that contract we signed does not mention word trough at all does not mean that you can grasp for straws at such actions.
Kishiro is more than willing to agree on allowing Rheinalnd and Zoner transports with Plutonium trough Honshu if they make sure they will exit in Sigma systems, but Kishiro will certainly not allow you to slander the name of Kishiro Technologies in front of the Emperor with "grasping for straws".
The sole reason you are interpreting the situation as you are is because you have found yourself in a tight spot. The Sigma 19 gate is sadly not yet opened, and you were eager to sign a deal with Rheinland's corporation Republican Shipping as soon as possible.
Emperor and Kishiro have proven the mutual support and trust by Emperor's law and they will continue to monitor the export of said commodities. To actually allow transports to pass trough and "track them" to their destination would require enormous resources and patience we cannot provide because the contract does not insist on it.
If the contract we signed insisted on letting all transports trough Kusari and Liberty we would certainly not have signed it.
Sadly I cannot see how this constant forcing of your own vision of the contract, the wrong vision makes this situation any less "hostile" than it is. Perhaps you should have had this much wisdom and desire to tackle with a challenge when you were putting together the contract.
Kishiro has for long been and will be friend and ally of GMG, but recently your actions have only caused severe harm to our profits.
Our exclusive contract has turned to not so exclusive contract when RepEx was given the chance to transport your commodities as well. Then, to our surprise again, we were completely blocked out of the Rheinland deal, forcing us to comply and in sign of good will accept that we will not transport neither Hfuel or Plutonium to Rheinland, while RepEx got the offer to transport the commodity even to our sworn enemy the Breotnia.
If this was, as you claim because there is simply not enough coverage to haul all of your commodities, and Kishiro simply had no ships to do so, why have we been forced out of Rheinland by this deal?
If on one hand, there is a need for additional hauling services, why block the initial transporters of the said commodities? It is very puzzling. Can RepEx actually transport their commodities alone better than with Kishiro aiding them? We could not believe that you are placing us, your loyal partner for many years on the same pedestal where you place a company from the house you were in war with. It made us very sad, but again, we endured.
However, all our other projects are going according to plan and I am sure that I can say with great confidence that you are happy with Kishiro's work. Then I ask you, Nozaki Ichimoto, why is there a need for a hostile tone in the entire dealings with Kusari and Kishiro as well, claiming that we have accepted the part of the contract that is not even written.
Kishiro's transports aren't a joke. We are not some spaceport harlot from who everyone will take a slice.
We support Emperor's will to lawfully monitor all the Plutonium and Hfuel supplies trough Kusari, and if you can reach an agreement with the Emperor, Kishiro will gladly support the passage of RepEx and other allies who have contract with you to pass trough Honshu and exit trough Sigma.
However if there is no agreement, I cannot say anything but "it is out of my hands".
I hope the decision is reached soon and we will be able to flourish together as we have been so far.