For more than 120 years during the Meiji, Taisho and Showa eras, the government was the primary driving force of the Japanese economy. That changed as the nation entered the Heisei era, as the private sector began to play a public role previously monopolized by the government. This is why the nation needs to structurally reform the economy.
Issues on the agenda for changing the corporate legal system include promotion of information disclosure by private-sector firms and of their autonomous moves to tighten self-discipline, the establishment of rules on market-based competition and possible bailouts for the losers, and the creation of a dispute-settlement mechanism. Companies will be required to actively provide information to the market and follow the set rules as they compete.
In this sense, the beef-mislabeling scandal, the latest problem at Snow Brand Foods Co., should be denounced as a suicidal act, as should the case brewing around defunct U.S. energy giant Enron Corp.