Region: Japan

Featured in Asia-Pacific Antitrust Review 2023

Updates to the Anti-monopoly Act have given the Japan Fair Trade Commission fresh powers to formally accept voluntary commitments suspected of having infringed the law. This landmark development is helping the commission to settle all cases investigating foreign entities’ competitive conduct.

10 March 2023

Featured in Asia-Pacific Antitrust Review 2023

The 2019 amendment to Japan’s Antimonopoly Act greatly influenced the country’s cartel regulation, significantly affecting its pre-existing Leniency Programme and introducing the Reduction System for Cooperation in Investigations.

10 March 2023

Japan’s antitrust authority has filed a criminal complaint to the country's public prosecutor against six companies and seven individuals that allegedly conspired to rig dozens of bids to advertise and plan test events for the recent Tokyo Summer Olympics.

28 February 2023

Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has warned Apple and Google that they may be infringing the country’s antitrust laws through their alleged duopoly over mobile operating systems and urged both to change their behaviour to boost competition.

10 February 2023

Japanese advertising company Dentsu Group has reportedly admitted to colluding to rig dozens of bids to advertise and plan test events for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, less than two months after rival Hakuhodo purportedly confessed its role in the infringement.

31 January 2023

Japan’s Fair Trade Commission has published draft guidance on how it will treat sustainability initiatives under the country’s antitrust law, clarifying collaboration agreements that will raise competition concerns and green objectives that require more research.

17 January 2023

One of Japan’s top advertising companies has reportedly admitted to its role in rigging bids to plan test events for the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, while another has filed for leniency.

16 December 2022

Featured in GCR 100 2023

Japan’s Fair Trade Commission might be one of the largest antitrust agencies in the world, but a drop off in enforcement means local competition lawyers have fewer in-depth merger reviews and cartel probes to work on.

12 December 2022

Featured in Foreign Direct Investment Regulation Guide - Second Edition

In response to concerns over security and the outflow of critical technologies and in light of the trend toward stricter FDI Regulations globally, the Japanese government has introduced several significant amendments to its FDI Regulations since 2017.

06 December 2022

Featured in Foreign Direct Investment Regulation Guide - Second Edition

As one of the first industries in which foreign direct investment (FDI) occurred on a large scale globally, the energy sector has also been one of the first in which legislative measures were introduced to regulate FDI.

06 December 2022