ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the activities of the Holding Company Liquidation Commission (HCLC), a poorly understood Japanese body that the government of Japan established in August 1946 under SCAPIN 244. Scholars – if they bother to mention the HCLC – have tended to characterise it as a tool of Occupation headquarters, General Headquarters (GHQ) or Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP), an instrument that dutifully carried out SCAP directives on business breakup and reorganisation. Drawing especially on the memoirs of Noda Iwajiro, a central figure in the HCLC, the chapter demonstrates that this agency played a critical role in shaping the Occupation's business reforms and in mitigating their effects. After the war ended and the Occupation commenced, Noda accepted appointment as a founding member and executive commissioner of the HCLC. Noda offered examples illustrating how the HCLC defended the interests of businesses designated under the Deconcentration Law.
