2003 JAPAN LAW: ABUSE OF POSITION
Keywords: Abuse of position, FTC, Fair Trade Commission, Antimonopoly law, antitrust, bid rigging, NHK, consumption tax, corruption, NTT
Copyright 2004. All rights reserved Attorney Roderick H. Seeman
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Separately, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry has announced plans to join together with the Fair Trade Commission to seek revision of  laws protecting small and medium sized manufacturers to expand coverage to  also service firms such a software firms. The legislation will seek to stop larger firms from delaying payments, collecting cooperation monies and forcing smaller firms from supplying personnel. Penalties are not immense. Serious violators will have their names published and may be fined more than the current 30,000 yen.

In January, 2003 the FTC urged NHK, the Japanese equivalent of the BBC to review its contracts with subcontractors to be sure they do not violate the Antimonopoly Law. The FTC expressed concern about the complaints from some subcontractors that the company may be abusing its position against subcontractors. There was specific concern about failure to specify compensation for copyrights in transferred programs. The FTC wanted the contracts to specify prices for production fees separately from copyright fees.
    
In February, as banks made massive share issues in attempts to shore up their weakened equity bases, the FTC warned banks about extorting corporate borrowers to buy up the shares.
    
The FTC is also warning retailers about abusing their power in April 2004 when the consumption tax will no longer be shown separately , but retail price labels will have the consumption tax included. Where, as a result of these changes, the retailer forces the supplier to lower prices, or forces the costs of introducing a new computer system onto the supplier, there may be violations of the anti-monopoly law.