 JCP representative in parliament calls for higher punitive surcharge for antitrust law violation The rate of surcharge for violation of the antitrust law is much lower in Japan than in the United States and Europe. On November 17 at the Lower House Committee on Economy, Trade and Industry, Japanese Communist Party representative Shiokawa Tetsuya revealed that the highest amount of surcharge a Japanese company has ever paid was only 1.6 billion yen while the amount was 57 billion yen in the United States and 50.3 billion yen in the EU. In their bills to revise the anti-monopoly law, submitted in the current Diet session, both the Democratic Party of Japan and the government are calling for an increase in surcharge to ten percent from the present six percent of sales exposed to be in violation of the antitrust law. However, Shiokawa said that more than 16.5 percent of the surcharge rate should be imposed by law in order to prevent illegal cartel and bid-rigging. He pointed out that companies that violated the law in the past earned 16.5 percent of profits on average from illegal cartel and bid-rigging. This Shiokawa's fair-enough point forced DPJ representative Okuda Ken to admit that the DPJ figured out the rate at 10 percent as a result of consultation with business circles. (end) |