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Opinion

US foreign investment rules have lessons for Japan's rigid approach

America's CFIUS review process is smarter than an absolute limit

| Japan
Shinzo Abe is on his way to a cabinet meeting on Oct. 18, which is set to approve revisions to the foreign exchange law: Japan's attempts to establish a set of legal criteria to decide what is acceptable have been hamfisted. (Photo by Uichiro Kasai)

Foreign investors in Japan are justifiably agitated about government plans requiring investors to get permission from regulators if they intend to buy more than 1% of the stock of a strategically sensitive company.

That is a considerably greater obstacle than the previous trigger level of 10%, and could make life difficult for the activist funds that have been the shock troops of Japan's corporate governance reforms.

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