There is a common perception that the Japanese takeover market excludes foreign companies. But this is not because Japanese takeover law is designed to protect target companies. Comparing Japanese takeover law with the UK Takeover Code and the European Takeover Directive, this thematic and contentbased investigation reveals that Japan does not have overt anti-takeover legislation. There is no stake-building control to alert a target company; there is no provision against virtual bids; post-bid undertaking is not legally binding on the bidder; the equivalent of the mandatory bid under the UK Takeover Code and the EU Directive is set at a much higher level so making it less costly for a bidder to obtain corporate control; there is no price control to protect minority shareholders. Yet the traditional symbiotic relationship between management and shareholders through cross-shareholdings and shareholder perks remains a major obstacle to a successful unsolicited takeover. Measures have been introduced to increase the success of unsolicited takeover bids by reducing cross-shareholdings through tax incentive measures and increasing board independence through a soft-law based governance code. These are unlikely to have a major impact on removing the existing obstacles. Adopting the UK Takeover Code or the EU Takeover Directive would not cure the problem and would more likely entrench the existing situation.

This paper looks at the importance of the law in a crypto-market and recognises that the market is a legal construct and so is the crypto-market. Private law matters as it provides legal certainty for market transactions. Regulatory intervention is required for a market as it can enhance legal certainty, mitigate legal and market risks, and address market failure. Currently there are different types of cryptoasset on the market. There are also several possible cryptoassets that are currently been imagined and could in the future enter the market. This phenomenon has created confusion. Cryptoassets keep developing alongside law and regulation. Using the existing private law concepts to engage in legal taxonomy exercises for these cryptoassets can lead to unsatisfactory results. Equally, applying the current regulatory ethos and framework to them has a significant risk of stifling financial innovation in the crypto-market. A new type of social contract is required to define the stakeholders and their relationships with law and regulation. This new social contract should reflect the desire to cross or even transcend national boundaries, the mistrust in the current centralised and intermediated market structure, the needs of the currently excluded, and a reformed power structure of global financial regulation. assets are in law so that stakeholders and participants in this developing system can understand how to use them to catalyse socio-economic transformation, 3 how to monetise them, 4 how to mitigate risks, 5 and how to regulate the way the system is used. 6