July 10/2008
Japan Fair Trade Commission
The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) provides consultation services to advise whether any problem has been found in a specific action an entrepreneur or trade association is going to take. Out of the cases the commission gave advice on, it selects some examples that would be helpful as a reference for other entrepreneurs and publishes them as examples with the intention of preventing violations of the Antimonopoly Act.
The commission has prepared new examples based on the cases it gave advice on during the fiscal year 2007 and released them today.
Among the cases listed this time, the following are considered to reflect the recent economic and social situations:
(1)Competing construction material manufacturers planned to enter into a mutual OEM deal to provide a fixed amount of products for remote destinations in order to reduce transportation costs and consulted with the commission as to whether any problems exist under the Antimonopoly Act.
(2) To curb the use of plastic bags, local governments,residents’ association and retailers planed to charge for such bags and decide their unit prices. They consulted with the commission as to whether any problems exist under the Antimonopoly Act.
(3) Due to higher costs of raw materials caused by soaring crude oil and grain prices, an industry is facing hardship following the significant rise in manufacturing costs and the industry’s trade association planed to issue a document describing the difficulties faced by the industry to the customers of its member entrepreneurs and consulted with the commission as to whether any problems exist under the Antimonopoly Act.
Consultation Cases by Contents (except merger and acquisition cases)
Contents | Number of Cases | ||
---|---|---|---|
FY2006 | FY2007 | ||
Consultation on activities of entrepreneurs | 1,806 | 1,897 | |
Consultation on distribution and business practices | (1,535) | (1,593) | |
Consultation on technology transaction | (63) | (87) | |
Consultation on joint R&D | (23) | (14) | |
Consultation on concerted action | (121) | (93) | |
Others | (64) | (110) | |
Consultation on activities of trade associations | 573 | 433 | |
Total | 2,379 | 2,330 |
*Every announcement is tentative translation. Please refer to the original text written in Japanese.