July 13, 2021 Appeal for Opinions on Draft of 2021 Report on Verification of Competition Rules

The Working Group on Verification of Competition Rules (chaired by NIIMI Ikufumi, Professor Emeritus at Meiji University), under the Meeting for Telecommunications Market Validation, drafted a document entitled “2021 Report on Verification of Competition Rules.” Accordingly, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) will make an appeal for opinions on the draft from Wednesday, July 14 through Tuesday, August 17, 2021.

1. Background

The Working Group on Verification of Competition Rules (hereafter referred to as the “WG”) was organized under the Meeting for Telecommunications Market Validation in April 2020. As a result of the enactment of the Act on Partial Amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act (Act No. 5 of 2019, hereafter “the Amendatory Act”) in October 2019, a legislation system has been put in place to completely separate communications charges and terminal device charges and to rectify the excessive enclosure of customers. Based on this system, the WG continued evaluating and verifying the effects of the measures taken, the impact on the mobile communications market. In October 2020, the WG compiled the results of the initial verification and review and released a document entitled “2020 Report on Verification of Competition Rules”.
In 2021, the WG continued evaluating and verifying the effects of the Amendatory Act and its impact on the mobile market, considering the change of the environment after the release of the report. At the same time, the WG focused on examining issues newly identified in the course of various studies and changes in the environment of the mobile market and others and continued discussing the necessary measures to promote fair competition further.
Recently, the WG drafted the document entitled 2021 Report on Verification of Competition Rules as a result of the discussions in the past. Therefore, MIC has decided to make an appeal for the opinions on the draft. The outline of the draft is shown in the attached PDF.

2. Appeal for opinions

1. Subject of appeal for opinions

Draft of 2021 Report on Verification of Competition Rules

2. Period of appeal for opinions

From Wednesday, July 14 and no later than Tuesday, August 17, 2021

3. Submission method of opinions

  • *
    The published material on how to submit opinions etc. is in Japanese only.

3. Future plans

The WG plans to finalize the report with consideration of the result of the appeal for opinions.

Contact

For further information about this press release, please fill in the inquiry form and submit it to MIC on the website
https://www.soumu.go.jp/common/english_opinions.html

Global Strategy Division, Global Strategy Bureau, MIC

TEL: +81 3 5253 5920

FAX: +81 3 5253 5924