New Legislation For The Unfair Competition Prevention Act

I.BACKGROUND OF THE LEGISLATION

Many incidents have recently been reported concerning misappropriation of Japanese companies' trade secret, especially by foreign entities. To take some examples:

i)　Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal ("NSSM") v. Posco

Posco, a Korean steel giant company, allegedly misappropriated NSSM's trade secrets related to manufacture of steel. A civil litigation was brought before the Tokyo District Court by NSSM, claiming about 1 billion USD as compensation for damages NSSM had suffered. It was recently reported that settlement agreement was concluded between NSSM and Posco in which Posco agreed to pay approximately 0.3 billion USD to NSSM as settlement money.