Press Conference by the Minister for Financial Services

(Excerpt)

June 13 , 2003

Today, we establish the Compliance Office which is composed of four legal experts within the Financial Services Agency (FSA), in order to ensure our officials' compliance with laws and regulations and assure transparency and fairness of the financial administration by the FSA.

The head of this office is Mr. Shuya Nomura, a Special Advisor to the Minister, a professor of the Faculty of Law in the Chuo University and a member of the ''Task Force on Financial Issues''. Other members are Mr. Osamu Yoshida and Mr. Hiroto Nakayama who are the FSA's officials in the Planning and Coordination Bureau and are qualified as an attorney-at-law. In addition, we invited Mr. Hideaki Kubori as an advisor to the office, who is a Special Advisor to the Minister, an attorney-at-law and a member of the Task Force.

This office will receive information concerning compliance with laws and regulations of administrative acts of FSA officials by post, FAX and e-mail. Such kinds of information must be included the real names and addresses of senders. Besides, Mr. Kubori will directly receive such information through a separate channel, the so-called ''Help Line''.

Q.

By what criteria did you selected these members of the new office?

A.

It is a matter of course that compliance should be secured, however, compliance is a new concept to Japanese society and organizations in a sense. In the field of compliance, Mr. Nomura and Mr. Kubori are representative experts of Japan.

It is essential to closely check compliance by persons independent from the usual decision-making mechanism of an organization.

In addition to Mr. Nomura and Mr. Kubori who have accepted the important position, we selected other members from the officials qualified as an attorney-at-law in the FSA, because, as I have just mentioned, expertises are necessary to respond to compliance matters. We are to ensure the compliance of officials through this system.

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