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purchase of Shinwas, and he had been a member of TCM’s board of
directors since 1987. Taylor said that he knew of no legitimate
business purpose for the TCM/Camaro relationship. To the best of
Taylor’s knowledge, petitioner never reported the existence of
the NSA/Camaro agreement to TCM's board. TCM's board did not
ratify or approve the NSA/Camaro agreement.
Wakashita, a mid-level manager of NSA, considered TCM to be
its sales representative on the Shinwa transaction from 1987 to
1989. He regularly dealt with Taylor and knew of no business
activity by Camaro relating to the Shinwa transaction. Kerry L.
Langdon, Chrysler’s Huntsville purchasing agent, was not aware of
anything that Camaro contributed to the Chrysler/NSA/TCM
relationship. Camaro did not negotiate, price, or set terms
relating to the Shinwa transaction and had no role in delivering
the Shinwas to Chrysler.
Petitioners contend that we should view Wakashita’s
testimony as biased because Camaro had failed to inform NSA that
Camaro was a foreign corporation, payments to which by NSA may
have been subject to withholding tax under section 881(a). We
disagree, and we note that the testimony of Kerry Langdon and
Taylor corroborated Wakashita’s testimony.
Petitioner testified that he needed to keep Camaro as a
party to the agreement to protect his business reputation and
because Camaro might be a lucrative source of future business in
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