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Relevant Laws

Title:Regulations Governing the Acquisition and Disposal of Assets by Public Companies (2022.01.28)
Article 16     A public company that acquires real property or right-of-use assets thereof from a related party shall evaluate the reasonableness of the transaction costs by the following means:
  1. Based upon the related party's transaction price plus necessary interest on funding and the costs to be duly borne by the buyer. "Necessary interest on funding" is imputed as the weighted average interest rate on borrowing in the year the company purchases the property; provided, it may not be higher than the maximum non-financial industry lending rate announced by the Ministry of Finance.
  2. Total loan value appraisal from a financial institution where the related party has previously created a mortgage on the property as security for a loan; provided, the actual cumulative amount loaned by the financial institution shall have been 70 percent or more of the financial institution's appraised loan value of the property and the period of the loan shall have been 1 year or more. However, this shall not apply where the financial institution is a related party of one of the transaction counterparties.

    Where land and structures thereupon are combined as a single property purchased or leased in one transaction, the transaction costs for the land and the structures may be separately appraised in accordance with either of the means listed in the preceding paragraph.
    A public company that acquires real property or right-of-use assets thereof from a related party and appraises the cost of the real property or right-of-use assets thereof in accordance with the preceding two paragraphs shall also engage a CPA to check the appraisal and render a specific opinion.
    Where a public company acquires real property or right-of-use assets thereof from a related party and one of the following circumstances exists, the acquisition shall be conducted in accordance with the preceding article, and the preceding three paragraphs do not apply:
  1. The related party acquired the real property or right-of-use assets thereof through inheritance or as a gift.
  2. More than 5 years will have elapsed from the time the related party signed the contract to obtain the real property or right-of-use assets thereof to the signing date for the current transaction.
  3. The real property is acquired through signing of a joint development contract with the related party, or through engaging a related party to build real property, either on the company's own land or on rented land.
  4. The real property right-of-use assets for business use are acquired by the public company with its parent or subsidiaries, or by its subsidiaries in which it directly or indirectly holds 100 percent of the issued shares or authorized capital.
Article 17     When the results of a public company's appraisal conducted in accordance with paragraph 1 and paragraph 2 of the preceding Article are uniformly lower than the transaction price, the matter shall be handled in compliance with Article 18. However, where the following circumstances exist, objective evidence has been submitted and specific opinions on reasonableness have been obtained from a professional real property appraiser and a CPA have been obtained, this restriction shall not apply:
  1. Where the related party acquired undeveloped land or leased land for development, it may submit proof of compliance with one of the following conditions:
    1. Where undeveloped land is appraised in accordance with the means in the preceding Article, and structures according to the related party's construction cost plus reasonable construction profit are valued in excess of the actual transaction price. The "Reasonable construction profit" shall be deemed the average gross operating profit margin of the related party's construction division over the most recent 3 years or the gross profit margin for the construction industry for the most recent period as announced by the Ministry of Finance, whichever is lower.
    2. Completed transactions by unrelated parties within the preceding year involving other floors of the same property or neighboring or closely valued parcels of land, where the land area and transaction terms are similar after calculation of reasonable price discrepancies in floor or area land prices in accordance with standard property market sale or leasing practices.
  2. Where a public company acquiring real property, or obtaining real property right-of-use assets through leasing, from a related party provides evidence that the terms of the transaction are similar to the terms of completed transactions involving neighboring or closely valued parcels of land of a similar size by unrelated parties within the preceding year.
    Completed transactions involving neighboring or closely valued parcels of land in the preceding paragraph in principle refers to parcels on the same or an adjacent block and within a distance of no more than 500 meters or parcels close in publicly announced current value; transactions involving similarly sized parcels in principle refers to transactions completed by unrelated parties for parcels with a land area of no less than 50 percent of the property in the planned transaction; within the preceding year refers to the year preceding the date of occurrence of the acquisition of the real property or obtainment of the right-of-use assets thereof.