Executive Summary
This issue will discuss the major Antimonopoly Act violations of 2004 concerning bid rigging, enforcement, and injunction.
The issue for the bid rigging case in connection with the pavement construction projects ordered by Kyoto City was whether a "Basic Agreement" existed or not. The defendant companies’ assertion that most companies were not aware of the existence of a Basic Agreement was rejected. What was this Basic Agreement? This case was particularly important to understand Japan’s bid rigging practices. Most bid rigging cases in Japan have been carried out within the same industry through several decades. For example, a rule would be set where if there were six public road construction projects a year, six designated companies would discuss and agree so that each company would win one project. Unless a new candidate appeared, each company would be promised one project a year and no company would attempt to break such rule. In Japan, it has often been the
