3.Corporate Matters and Procedure

|Q4 (Minutes in English)

We have a few foreigners among our directors and shareholders. Can we prepare our shareholder and board minutes in English?

The Companies Act does not contain any special restriction regarding the language of the minutes. However, without a specific regulation that permits foreign language documents, minutes prepared in a foreign language cannot be said to be valid. As a practical matter, for registration purposes this means a registration attempt with foreign language minutes attached would be rejected. So, it would be better to prepare the official minutes in Japanese, and prepare an English translation as necessary.

(Posted: January 27, 2012)