Japan's ruling party warns about suspected collusion between activist investors and private equity

TOKYO, July 17 : Japan's ruling party raised concerns on Friday over suspected collusion between activist investors and buyout funds in take-private deals, warning that such arrangements could undermine fairness in capital markets.In draft policy proposals, the Liberal Democratic Party's project team on corporate governance said that there have been some cases in which activists are suspected of working behind the scenes with private equity funds seeking to take listed companies private.Such cases "raise concerns from the perspectives of both enhancing corporate value and legal fairness", the group said in the proposals, which would be finalised by the end of this month. The proposals did not cite specific cases of the alleged collusion. This marks one of the clearest expressions of concer