Teikoku Databank Ltd. said Wednesday it will substantially cut down its monthly data on corporate bankruptcies due to the new personal information protection law.
The law, which took effect in April, has made it difficult to gather information on small businesses, the private credit research agency said.
Starting with May data to be released in June, monthly data will not include bankruptcies involving voluntary liquidation.
Voluntary liquidation takes place when a company's promissory notes are dishonored twice, prompting a bank to stop doing business with it, or when the representative of a company concludes it is insolvent.
Large companies are usually subject to legal liquidation procedures, including filing for court protection from creditors under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law, when they cannot deal with their liabilities. Voluntary liquidation often involves small businesses.
According to data released by Teikoku Databank the same day, voluntary liquidation accounted for approximately half of the companies in April that went down with liabilities of more than 10 million yen.