DIC's granting this request, it is not only Sogo's bosses that would welcome a public bail-out.
Rather less has been said, however, about Sogo's restructuring plan, which has so far won few converts.
New management should be able to sort things out after the resignation in April of Hiroo Mizushima, Sogo's boss.
Another plus from the Sogo saga could be less future intervention in the painful but necessary culling of unsalvageable companies.
Sogo shosha Marubeni (No. 7) and Nissho Iwai (No. 10) grossed about 15% less, but managed to swing back into the black.
Sogo bosses now must produce a plan to save or shutter their company in the more transparent arena of the bankruptcy court.
If the lessons of Sogo are learned, in the long run, its demise could lead to the birth of a healthier Japanese economy.
Now, Tokyo will probably have to write off almost all the Sogo debt that it holds, while banks must increase their loan-loss reserves.
DIC's remaining loans preferential treatment in the rescheduling of Sogo's debts.
Had this new scheme been implemented in March 2000, then banks would not have had to write off loans to Sogo, a giant retailer that went bust shortly afterwards.
ECONOMIST: Yet another emergency package disappoints in Japan
Other Japanese sogo shosha are also aggressively buying abroad.
It is by no means clear that Japan's banks are yet strong enough to deal with the bankruptcy of Sogo and the wave of failures (of suppliers, for example) that would follow.
At worst, an attempt to use the systemic risk fund could turn into another fiasco like last summer's, when the government tried unsuccessfully to use public funds to save the Sogo department stores.
No prizes for guessing that Japan's sogo shosha or trading corporations continue to take the top places in The Asiaweek 1000, now in its eighth year of ranking the region's largest companies by sales.
Then they should take realistic steps to rehabilitate themselves. (Sogo's secretiveness and complex structure reportedly helped obscure the company's woes, even from its own executives.) Banks must get real about which loans on their books are hopeless.
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