Tokyo Exchange Chief Seeks Tighter Regulation

Tokyo Stock Exchange chief Atsushi Saito "stepped up his attack on Japan's corporate governance yesterday, saying the exchange was almost powerless to stamp out bad practices that have damaged the market's reputation," the Financial Times reports.

Saito said investors in companies listed on the exchange are subject to abuses that other leading markets wouldn't tolerate from listed companies. An example he cited is the way Japanese companies can sell large amounts of shares to a third party that dilutes the holdings of existing shareholders, without revealing the identity of the third party, the FT says.

"Sometimes it is said that black money is coming in. In that way, criminal money is getting into the financial marketSaito said. "The TSE is a kind of quasi-private company; we are not a government organization, so [unless there is a criminal breach] what we can do at most is to [issue] a warning."