You are overstating the case for the Japanese saving of face and humiliation here.  The Japanese are not as melodramatic as you make them out to be in your example.  When faced with difficult choices they are likely to weigh the dollar amounts more carefully than an American company and will have marathon meetings to understand their options. They will tend to go over and over what their best course will be ad nauseum.  Very little discussion takes place regarding degrees of humiliation and face-saving in my experience.  Mostly discussions about short, medium, and longer-term advantages/disadvantages regarding strategy and cutting of losses in what are challenging circumstances. Giving them an out so that the J3 may save face won't have a whole lot of impact if the dollar amount is considered by them to be exorbitant. They will posture as if they have been wronged and will sign the agreement because it is the better of all the options under consideration - not because they will be able to "save face" in some way.  There are very few opportunities in the high stakes world of intellectual property to save face when there are hundreds of millions of dollars going over to another company without any "real" return on investment.  This is a bitter pill to swallow for any company Japanese or otherwise.