May 17, 2002
Financial Services Agency

Signing of Information Sharing Arrangement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission

Today, the FSA signed a Statement of Intent (SOI) Concerning Cooperation, Consultation and the Exchange of Information with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Also, diplomatic Notes Verbale (Notes) supporting the SOI will be exchanged today (U.S. time) by the governments of Japan and the United States.

As securities transactions have become increasingly global, there is a growing need to cooperate in combating transnational fraud, and, in this connection, to share information about illegal cross-border securities activity. Thus, we have established a framework for the exchange of information with the U.S. regulators which oversee the world's largest markets closely linked to ours.

Under the framework set by the SOI and the Notes, Japanese and U.S. regulators will exchange information regarding market volume and prices, as well as information on particular transactions collected upon request by each authority.

The FSA has already entered into similar information sharing arrangements with China and Singapore.