2003 JAPAN LAW: ONE YEN COMPANIES
Keywords: Corporate Law, Company Law
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved Attorney Roderick H. Seeman
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From February, 2003 a new law in Japan, valid until 2008,  permitted businesspeople to establish stock companies (kabushiki gaisha) or limited liability companies (yugen gaisha) with a paid up capital of only one yen. The one requirement is that they must make increases to  the levels usually required, 10 million yen for stock companies and 3 million yen for limited liability companies within five years. If not they  may be required to be liquidated or turned into an unlimited liability partnership. The government is trying its best to make it easy to do business and get the economy restarted. By September 2003 the number of company’s taking advantage of the new system had reached a mere 238 companies.