An advisory panel to the Financial Services Agency has unveiled a set of draft rules for accounting that would oblige businesses to book latent losses on fixed property holdings, starting in fiscal 2005.
If the rules take effect unchanged, they could sharply dent companies' profitability.
In an attempt to engineer a soft landing, the FSA would allow businesses to take pre-emptive action against the rules by booking these losses on financial statements beginning in fiscal 2003.