51.   Sokaiya make their living by demanding payoffs from companies under the threat of disrupting shareholder meetings or revealing embarrassing information about company executives.

52.   Still, he said he has rented out metal detectors for corporate shareholder meetings six times this year alone.

53.   Such mobsters, called sokaiya, often threaten to disrupt annual shareholder meetings unless they are paid off.

54.   That means that the SmallCap-listed companies must hold annual shareholder meetings and seek shareholder approval for some transactions, such as acquisitions and stock offerings.

55.   That alone would be unusual in a country where shareholders meetings are almost always short, placid affairs.

56.   The bank, not the foreign ADR holder, is allowed to vote at shareholder meetings.

57.   The code will seek to create rules for annual shareholder meetings and to establish boards of directors as independent bodies.

58.   The blackmailers, known as sokaiya, buy enough shares to gain speaking rights at shareholders meetings, then use the meetings as a platform for humiliating company executives.

59.   The executives allegedly paid millions of yen to the extortionists over the past two years to ensure that shareholders meetings were conducted without disruption, media reports said.

60.   The group expects to expand its efforts to other companies for many shareholder meetings to come.