Today’s guest blog post is by Masayuki Atsumi of the Japanese law firm Mori Hamada & Matsumoto. Mr. Atsumi was an attorney with the JFTC before private practice.
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Japan is one of the most important jurisdictions in Asia in relation to cartel enforcement, but not many written materials articulate the details of Japanese cartel regulation. As my first contribution to this blog, I would like to briefly provide an overview of Japanese cartel regulation, with a focus mainly on procedural and practical aspects.
- Prohibition on cartel activities
The Japanese Anti-Monopoly Act (“AMA”) prohibits, among other things, “unreasonable restraint of trade” which includes collusive activities such as cartels or bid-rigging. A cartel violation is not per se illegal in Japan because the AMA requires that the Japan Fair Trade Commission (“JFTC”), the Japanese antitrust enforcement body, must prove a “substantive restraint on competition in the relevant market” in order to find a violation.