Japan’s Finance Ministry is seeking tighter controls...

Japan’s Finance Ministry is seeking tighter controls on insider trading in securities and hopes to present a draft to amend the current law before parliament next month, a senior ministry official says. “The definition (of insider trading) is very vague and guilt is difficult to determine,” Kazumoto Suzuki, director of the ministry’s securities division, said. Specific prohibitions on insider trading transactions, based on non-public information, apply under the current law only to company executives and shareholders with more than 10% of a company’s shares.