FSA publishes English translations of major legislation

[Alan Siegrist]

Hi All,

Those of you that handle financial-related translation might be interested
to know that the Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan has published new
(as of June 27) translations of three major pieces of Japanese
finance-related legislation: the Banking Act, the Financial Instruments and
Exchange Act and the Insurance Business Act. These are available here:
http://www.fsa.go.jp/en/news/2008/20080627-4.html

Naturally, these English translations are not "official" but since they are
published by a government agency, they are as close to being official as
there is. At least, they might be useful references.

Regards,

Alan Siegrist
Orinda, CA, USA

[Matt Stanton]

Interesting. I see they're still awaiting reviews from the Cabinet
Secretariat (which is I suppose is why they're not on the Cabinet
Secretariat's Web site yet), but they seem to have been translated
using the Standard Bilingual Dictionary so I can't see too many
changes happening before they get "officially" approved.

Matt Stanton

[Hirayama]

Dear Alan,

> the Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan has published new
> (as of June 27) translations of three major pieces of Japanese
> finance-related legislation: the Banking Act, the Financial Instruments and
> Exchange Act and the Insurance Business Act.

thank you for the hint. BTW do you know where to search for the
original
texts?

Kind regards,

Uwe Hirayama
hira...@freenet.de
JP, GER (ENG)

[Matt Stanton]

Banking Act:
http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S56/S56HO059.html

Financial Instruments and Exchange Act:
http://law.e-gov.go.jp/htmldata/S23/S23HO025.html

The Insurance Business Act can also be found at the same place:

http://law.e-gov.go.jp/

Search for 保険業法. It's in frames, so I can't give you the URL.

Matt

> hiray...@freenet.de
> JP, GER (ENG)

[Alan Siegrist]

Dear Uwe,

> > the Financial Services Agency (FSA) of Japan has published new
> > (as of June 27) translations of three major pieces of Japanese
> > finance-related legislation: the Banking Act, the Financial Instruments
> > and Exchange Act and the Insurance Business Act.
>
> thank you for the hint. BTW do you know where to search for the
> original texts?

The originals of these and almost all other Japanese laws can be found at
the very useful site http://www.houko.com/.

The laws are all very nicely formatted, hyperlinked and searchable through
Google. To find a specific law, just type in the Japanese name of the law
into google.co.jp and add 'houko' and you should find it in the first or
second hit.

[Marc Adler]

On Wed, Jul 2, 2008 at 1:35 PM, Matt Stanton <matt...@gmail.com> wrote:

using the Standard Bilingual Dictionary so I can't see too many
changes happening before they get "officially" approved.

Have there ever been "official" translations of Japanese laws?

--
Marc Adler
Austin, TX

Пусть безумная идея, не рубайте сгоряча,
Вызывайте нас скорее через гада главврача,
С уваженьем, дата, подпись, отвечайте нам, а то
Если вы не отзоветесь, мы напишем в "Спортлото"!

[Alan Siegrist]

Marc Adler writes:

using the Standard Bilingual Dictionary so I can't see too many
changes happening before they get "officially" approved.

Have there ever been "official" translations of Japanese laws?

As far as I know, no. English has no standing as any sort of official language in Japan, so only the Japanese versions of Japanese laws have any legal effect.

[Matt Stanton]

> Have there ever been "official" translations of Japanese laws?
>
> --
> Marc Adler
> Austin, TX

Not until quite recently, but now the answer to this question is
probably yes. Although the Cabinet Office Secretariat's translations
are marked as "unofficial", all that really means is that they won't
be referred to by the courts when judgements are being made. Unless
Japan decides to make English an official language, giving the
translations the same legal effect as the originals, these
translations are as official as you're ever going to get. I think
you've got to be quite brave not to use their names, quote from them,
etc. The days of just translating a law any which why you like are
pretty much over, I think.

They've translated dozens of laws now:

http://www.cas.go.jp/jp/seisaku/hourei/data2.html

Matt Stanton