Japan's largest language school franchise filed for court protection from creditors as its debt swelled to nearly 50 billion yen.

Company officials announced its move with the courts this Friday, according to IBTimes Japan.

The N ova language schools had liabilities grow to 43.9 billion yen and will be delisted from the Jasdaq Securities Exchange on Nov. 27.

The company, which provides mostly English conversation courses, had a 50% market share among foreign language schools in the financial year from April 2002 to March 2003, according to a government statistics.

Japan's trade ministry ordered the firm to suspend some of its operations in June after it was found to have violated commercial laws amid misled customers about it services in advertisements.

Japan