Region: Japan

Search engines like Google and Yahoo may be abusing their superior bargaining positions by failing to properly compensate news publishers for displaying their content, Japan’s antitrust authority has said.

22 September 2023

Japan’s Fair Trade Commission is reportedly investigating whether the country’s largest property insurers colluded to fix premium prices following a parallel probe from one of the country’s financial regulators.

09 August 2023

Four of Japan’s largest property insurers are reportedly facing claims they colluded to fix the prices of premiums sold to major corporate customers.

03 August 2023

Apple and Google should be prohibited from forcing consumers to use their native billing systems and also allow application downloads on their smartphones from alternative distribution channels, the Japanese government has said following a detailed review of the market.

21 June 2023

Senior officials at competition authorities in Korea, Japan and Singapore have said they are struggling to hire data scientists and economists to assist with their work in online markets, although the latter enforcer still plans to set up a new digital unit in the coming months.

08 June 2023

Japan’s competition authority has raided a healthcare technology company over concerns it forced payment providers to sell its software if they wanted to connect with its platform.

25 May 2023

Significant hope exists in Japan among the public, politicians and business community that competition policy can be a “large part of the solution” to the country’s socioeconomic problems, a commissioner at its antitrust agency has said.

31 March 2023

Japan’s competition authority has hit four former utilities with over €700 million in fines for illegally conspiring to suppress competition after the country’s electricity market was deregulated, in what is the agency’s largest fine for an antitrust violation.

30 March 2023

A bipartisan group of US lawmakers has accused Japan of “turning a blind eye” to Sony’s “blatantly anticompetitive conduct”, in breach of a trade agreement’s commitment to provide non-discriminatory treatment to US digital products.

29 March 2023

Japan’s competition watchdog has fined five pharmaceutical wholesalers a combined €4.5 million for rigging bids to supply drugs to the country’s largest hospital administrator.

27 March 2023