Yoko Hasegawa, 59, a former managing director of UBC Corp., pleaded not guilty Monday to embezzling 80 million yen from the data-processing firm between 1994 and 2000.

Two of Hasegawa's former subordinates meanwhile owned up to their involvement in the scam.

During the first session of a Tokyo District Court trial in which three former UBC executives and four others stand accused of embezzlement relating to UBC, Hasegawa maintained that he was not aware of the scheme at the beginning and that he later took the money to keep the wrongdoing under wraps and thus to save the firm.