Re: RJR breakup

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

A note from Professor Mark Levin on Japan Tobacco and the RJR breakup:

"The Government of Japan is Buying RJR's International Tobacco Unit"

To appreciate the RJR/JT deal, it is important to understand that it is the
Japanese Government who is buying RJR's international tobacco business.  In
this regard, the transaction represents a remarkable new set of
circumstances in the international tobacco industry.

Japan Tobacco Inc. is private in name only because two-thirds (2/3'rds) of
its common stock is owned by the Japanese Minister of Finance in his
official capacity.   This fact derives from the Japan Tobacco Incorporation
Law, enacted by the Japanese parliament in 1984, which explicitly requires
the Minister of Finance to retain at least two-thirds of JT's stock "for
the time being" and at least one-half of JT's stock "in perpetuity".  Any
ownership change would require action by the Japanese parliament and
nothing suggests that such action may be likely anytime in the forseeable
future.

Futher detail can be found in my 1997 article published in the Stanford Law
and Policy Review,  "Smoke around the Rising Sun:  An American Look at
Tobacco Regulation in Japan".

Mark Levin

*****************************************
Mark A. Levin                         
Assistant Professor of Law     
The William S. Richardson School of Law   
University of Hawaii at Manoa 
Honolulu, HI  96822  USA