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Professor Curtis Milhaupt of Columbia Law School, an expert on Japanese and comparative law, has produced an insightful and succinct analysis of the TEPCO legal situation that puts it all in globalcontext, entitled The Governance Meltdown.
The presentation is available intheJapanese Law folder of the Data Library, Academic sub-section.
The American Chamber of Commerce in Japan (ACCJ) has released new viewpoints relating to shareholder voting and other rights, and the reporting of investment performance by investment trusts and other funds:
Establish a System that Enables Beneficial Shareholders to Exercise Shareholder Rights
http://bdti.mastertree.jp/f/8cegwh0q
Improve Performance Results
My firm, Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP, has launched a corporate governance blog. This has a particular focus on U.S. corporate governance issues. The link is here:
The ACCJ has released a Viewpoint with recommendations regardingamendment of the Japanese Company Law, focusing on the need for independent directors on boards and proposing concrete ways to introduce legally valid board committees comprised by them to Japanese corporate governance.The full Viewpoint is on BDTI's Data Library, in the ACCJ Folder.Itsmost importantrecommendations are:
One of the oddest elements of the Dodd-Frank financial reforms is a provision requiring disclosure of a company's exposure to conflict minerals. The SEC will be policing this policy. Are there any similar sorts of disclosure requirements in Japan? Do you think that Japan should be using its corporate governance and disclosure rules to try and pursue an agenda relating to international human rights?
The SEC describes its rules as follows:
As Japan considers the creation of audit committee-style companies as part of its amendment of its Company Law, we have uploaded the following useful documents by Deloitte & Touche LLC concerning on current practices in the U.S to the data library (Foreign Folder, United States sub-folder, Deloitte folder).
On April 20, 2011, the SEC announced its plans for a roundtable to discuss benefits or challenges in potentially incorporating International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) into the financial reporting system for U.S. issuers.
Users have asked us to put this question up for comments and entries. Entries can be anonymous and will be subject to the same filter as other comments: we will approve them as long as they are reasonable in tone and well-thought-out. (Note: governance hererefers not only to corporate governance, but also to governance and oversightof the regulatory process.)
by Stephen Givens
The Supreme Court’s rejection of Horie’s appeal and the confirmation that he will serve two and a half years in prison for “accounting fraud”, five years after Horie and Murakami were initially arrested, concludes a chapter that should make us worry about the integrity of Japan’s judicial system.
On March 30, 2011, the U.K. Ministry of Justice (MOJ) announced that the
U.K. Bribery Act 2010 will be in force as ofJuly 1, 2011. Secretary of State for Justice Kenneth Clarke simultaneously published guidance about procedures that relevant commercial organisations can put in place to prevent associated persons from paying bribes – the so-called adequate procedures guidance (the MOJ Guidance). http://bdti.mastertree.jp/f/9wq8mo7c