The Financial Services Authority (FSA) has drawn up a proposal to extend the period during which minority shareholders can exercise their rights after individual shareholder notification has been communicated to Japan Securities Depository Center, Inc. (JASDEC).
Under the Law concerning the book-entry transfer of bonds and stocks, etc., minority shareholders are only able to exercise their rights within a certain period of time after individual shareholder notification has been given. The period is currently defined in an existing government ordinance as within two weeks after notification is given. In order to ensure that the rights of minority shareholders are realized, the FSA has proposed a government ordinance to extend this period from two weeks to four weeks.
The FSA has scheduled the change to be enforced on the same day that the proposed government ordinance is promulgated, which is expected to be at the end of March this year. In addition, the FSA plans to apply the new timeframe as an interim measure in cases where notification has been given before the enforcement date. However, this does not include cases where the two-week period has already passed prior to the enforcement date.
The FSA has called for public comments on the proposal, with a deadline of March 5, 2009.
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