日本の独禁法違反事件

以下は、任天堂のゲーム機用の液晶ディスプレイ・パネルを生産するシャープと日立が価格を協定していた疑いで、公正取引委員会が両社を立入り調査したと報じるFinancial Timesの記事。青字冒頭の、Japan's Antitrust watchdogとは、公正取引委員会のことである。日本の公正取引委員会はアメリカの連邦取引委員会(FTC: Federal Trade Commission)に相当する。複数の会社が価格について協定を結ぶことを価格カルテルというが、本件はその典型例である。ちなみに、アメリカのAntitrust法をモデルとして制定された日本の独占禁止法は、(1)私的独占、(2)不公正な取引制限、(3)不公正な取引方法、の３つを取り締まり対象にしている。大企業同士の合併について、公正取引委員会への届出が要求されているのは、(1)の視点から当該合併の適否を公正取引委員会が審査するためである。価格カルテルは、(2)に抵触する事案である。カルテル(cartel)には、価格カルテルと生産カルテル（複数の会社が協定して生産量をコントロールする）があるが、独禁法違反として摘発された事案の多くは、価格カルテルである。（３）に関連して摘発される事案は、大手量販店や百貨店が納入業者に対してキャンペーンのための協賛金の提供を要求するケースや「説明員」と称して納入業者の従業員を実質的に店員として働かせるようなケースである。

　ビジネスパースンが常日頃留意すべき法は、会社法、税法、金融商品取引法などの一般法に加え、業法（食品衛生法、建築基準法など特定の業界を規制する法）など多々あるが、独占禁止法も一般法としてその概要を知っておくべき法である。

Watchdog raids offices of Sharp and Hitachi

By Jonathan Soble in Tokyo

Published: February 29 2008 02:00 | Last updated: February 29 2008 02:00

Japan's antitrust watchdog raided the offices of Sharp and Hitachi yesterday to investigate whether the two colluded to fix prices for display panels used in Nintendo portable game players.

The Fair Trade Commission said it was examining whether the companies shared information about bids to supply liquid crystal displays for Nintendo's DS hand-held console to stem a decline in prices.

Sharp and Hitachi are the only makers of the screens.

An FTC official said it was unclear how much the alleged collusion might have cost Nintendo, which ex-pects to sell 29.5m of the two-screen DS players in the year ending March 31.

The commission was likely to take six months to a year to complete its investigation, he said.

Falling prices for LCD panels have driven Japanese producers to forge a series of alliances in recent months, shrinking the industry into three main camps. Sharp and Hitachi belong to ostensibly rival groups.

Analysts said competition authorities did not appear to oppose the consolidation as such, which is seen as vital to shoring up industry profit margins as prices continue to fall.

But they said officials might feel the need to balance support for industry alliances by taking a tough stand against any wrongdoing.

Only Sharp earns significant profits from selling the small LCDs used in game players and mobile phones, and the industry as a whole is racing to develop ever-larger panels for television models, which carry higher margins.

This week Sony announ-ced that it would invest $1bn in Sharp's newest television LCD factory.

Hitachi, meanwhile, is selling half its LCD business to Canon and Matsushita Electric, owner of the Panasonic brand, under a deal an-nounced in December and finalised this month.

Canon and Matsushita said the probe would not affect their deal with Hitachi.

In 2006, authorities in the US, Europe, Japan and South Korea launched an inquiry into leading LCD panel makers, but that investigation has not yet produced results.

The Japanese official de-clined to say whether the FTC had uncovered evidence of price fixing in DS screens as part of the global investigation, which he said was continuing, or whether it had received information from another source.

A Nintendo spokesman said the company had not complained to the FTC about Sharp and Hitachi's pricing.

Sharp was the sole supplier of DS screens for about a year. After that Nintendo began procuring a small portion of its displays from Hitachi.

Shares in Sharp fell 3.1 per cent yesterday against a 0.8 per cent decline in the benchmark Nikkei. Hitachi lost 2.3 per cent.