October 27, 2020 Result of Appeal for Opinions on Draft of 2020 Report on Verification of Competition Rules and Release of Finished Report

The Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) made an appeal for opinions from Wednesday, September 9 through Thursday, October 8, 2020, on a draft document entitled 2020 Report on Verification of Competition Rules, which was prepared by a Working Group on Verification of Competition Rules (Chief Investigator: NIIMI Ikufumi, Professor Emeritus at Meiji University) under a Meeting for Telecommunications Market Validation.
Considering the results of the appeal for opinions, the WG finalized its 2020 Report on Verification of Competition Rules, and MIC will open the same to the public.

1. Overview

The Act on Partial Amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act (Act No. 5 of 2019, hereafter “the Amendatory Act”) has been put in place since October 2019 to completely separate communications charges and terminal device charges and to rectify the excessive enclosure of customers, such as contract period restrictions. Considering the enactment of the Amendatory Act, the Working Group on Verification of Competition Rules (hereafter referred to as the “WG”) was organized under the Meeting for Telecommunications Market Validation. Accordingly, the WG has evaluated and verified the enforcement status of the Amendatory Act and its impact on the mobile telecommunications market through analysis using various data and hearings from related parties. At the same time, the WG has been discussing the current issues of the mobile communications market and the fixed-line communications market, as well as policies for responding to each issue.
Considering the results of the past discussions and appeal for opinions, the WG finalized its 2020 Report on Verification of Competition Rules. Accordingly, MIC has decided to open the same to the public, along with the results of the appeal for opinions.

2. Results of appeal for opinions

MIC made an appeal for opinions on the draft report from Wednesday, September 9 through Thursday, October 8, and received 44 opinions.

3. Method for obtaining references

MIC will post reference information on the public comment page of the e-Gov (https://www.e-gov.go.jp/en/ ).