Leniency Program in Japan and its
Success
NAMBU Toshiyuki
南部 利之
Deputy Secretary General for International Affairs
Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC)
September 17th , 2013, Beijing, China
The view stated here is my own and
does not necessarily reflect the view of
the JFTC.
Advent and Spread of Leniency Programs in the
world
 US 1978
⇒ 1993 thoroughly revised
1996 EU
1997 Korea
2000 Canada, UK, Germany
2001 France, Ireland
2002 Netherlands
・・・・・
2006 Japan
 2008
China
・・・・・ 2009 further spread
2001
OECD Competition
Commission
Adopted “Report on Leniency
Programs to Fight Hard Core
Cartels”
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Japanese Leniency program – transparent, certain and
substantial 1st Applicant
Initiation of JFTC investigation
Before
2nd Applicant
100%
immunity
50%
reduction
Criminal accusation NOT
filed by JFTC (Applicant
company and its
individuals)
3rd to 5th Applicant
30%
reduction
After
Up to
3 Applicants
30%
reduction
30%
reduction
Up to 5 applicants
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
Ｊｏｉｎｔ Ａｐｐｌｉｃａｔｉｏｎ
Upon certain conditions being met, two or more violators within the same company group will be
permitted to jointly file an application for surcharge reduction or immunity.
All the applicants will be assigned the same order of application
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3
Requirements for leniency application
For immunity
•The first applicant has to come forward before the initiation of the JFTC investigation
For reduction
•2nd to 5th applicants have to come forward and make a report individually to the JFTC.
•Maximum number of applications after the investigation begins: Three
•For applications after the initiation of investigation, report is due the 20th day from the first day of the
investigation.
Both for immunity and reduction
•Form No.1 (for pre-investigation) and Form No.3 (for post-investigation) must be transmitted only in
facsimile
03-3581-5599 (+81-335815599 from overseas, but Japanese language only)
•Applicants should not commit the relevant violation on and after the first day of the investigation.
•Applicants should submit reports or materials responding to JFTC's additional requests.
•Reports and documents submitted should not contain false information.
•Applicants should not have coerced others to commit the infringement or blocked others from ceasing.
•Applicants should not disclose the fact of application to the third parties without justifiable reasons.
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Form No. 1: Written report to the JFTC
○ Summary of the Violating Act to be Reported
1. Goods or Services Targeted
by the Violating Act
(1)
(2)
2. Description of the Violating Act
3. The Time of the First Implementation
(The Time of Termination)
______ (Year) ______ (Month)
(until ______ [Year] ______ [Month] )
* The written report shall be prepared in Japanese.
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Experience of leniency applications in Japan
 Number of applications after the introduction of the leniency program（Since
Jan. 2006）
FY
2005
2006
2007
2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
Applications
２６
７９
７４
８５
８５
１３１
143
102
※The period of FY2005 is between Jan. 4 and Mar. 31 in 2006.
※In 2010, the program was revised to introduce joint application and to expand the number of applicants.
 Number of the total cartel cases and leniency applied cases
FY
The number of
price-fixing cartels
and bid-riggings etc
Leniency applied cases
(published)
Leniency applied
companies (published)
05
06
07
08
09
10
11
12
１７
９
２０
１１
２２
１０
17
20
０
６
１６
８
２１
７
9
19
０
１６
３７
２１
５０
１０
27
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 Leniency applications are important information sources of price-fixing cartels and bid riggings.
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Characteristics of leniency program in Japan which
make companies apply leniency in a positive manner
1. Immunity or substantial reduction of surcharge
2. First applicant to be precluded from criminal accusation
3. Debarment period to be halved from public tendering
4. No discretion for the JFTC concerning the applicable rates
5. Easy acceptance of application and not heavy obligation for
the leniency applicant to cooperate with the JFTC
6. Not all applications are investigated
7. No penalty plus program
8. Infrequent private damage recovery lawsuit
9. Shareholders lawsuits against directors concerned for damage
recovery when they missed leniency application
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Familiarity with the leniency program of the
Japanese big companies
The first cartel case which was initiated by the leniency
application
Surcharge payment order in September,2006 on the bid rigging for the
construction of the tunnel ventilation facilities ordered by the Metropolitan
highway public corporation
 Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Cooperation was the first applicant before the
start of the investigation and it enjoyed 100% immunity from surcharge.
Among four companied ordered surcharge payment, Ishikawajima-Harima
Heavy Industry Cooperation (IHI) and Kawasaki Heavy Industry Cooperation
were the second and the third leniency applicants after the start of the
investigation and their surcharge payments were reduced 30%.
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Support from the business side toward the leniency program
and the improvement of corporate incentive for the application
Result of the survey on the corporate compliance conducted in 2010 by
the research institute of WASEDA University
Among 448 listed companies, 84 % positively evaluated the leniency
program compared to 11% criticized it.
Results of the JFTC’s survey on the status and issues of Corporate AMA
Compliance in 2012
 Among 879 listed companies, 51% answered positively to the question;
“Do you in tend to apply leniency when the involvement of your employees
in the violating conducts become aware?”
In the previous surveys, the percentage of the positive answers to the
same question has been increasing; 23.2% in 2006, 43.2% in 2008 and
49.8% in 2010.
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Thank you very much
for your attention!
Please Visit Our Website!
http://www.jftc.go.jp/en/index.html
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