Online, out of line: Amazon's troubles in Japan may herald heightened regulatory attention

MLex Market Insight

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4.9 • 9 Ratings

🗓️ 30 May 2018

⏱️ 10 minutes

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Summary

E-commerce giant Amazon is under a cloud in Japan, where the country's competition regulator is weighing whether it abused its relationships with its suppliers. Japanese-style rules on abuses of superior bargaining positions are a relative rarity around the world, and they are sparingly used even in Japan. But they may be gaining a new lease on life as the country's antitrust regulator eyes a probe of another household-name platform business in Germany – an investigation of Facebook that shares similar concerns over an asymmetry of market power. MLex Correspondent Toko Sekiguchi and Chief Global Antitrust Correspondent Leah Nylen join Asia Managing Editor David Plott to explore the issues.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, I'm David Plott, Emlex's managing editor for Asia, coming today from our bureau in Hong Kong.
0:17.8	If you're new to Emlex's podcasts, a very warm welcome. And if you've listened to our
0:22.9	podcast before, welcome back. Today we're headed to Japan. That's where one of the world's
0:28.7	biggest retailers has found itself in hot water recently over the way it apparently treats its
0:34.4	suppliers. The company in question is Amazon.
0:39.3	Now Amazon offers discounts on the products supplied to it.
0:43.3	Nothing wrong with that, you might say.
0:45.3	But Amazon is suspected of making the suppliers of those products
0:49.3	cover part of the discounts it offers.
0:52.3	And that's where the problem with Japan's competition regulator
0:56.2	begins. Here with me today to talk about Amazon's troubles in Japan and what may be a turning
1:02.6	point in Japanese antitrust enforcement is Emlex correspondent Toko Sekaguchi. We're also joined by Emlex's chief global antitrust correspondent,
1:13.9	Leah Nyland, on one of her regular visits to Asia from our bureau in Washington, D.C. Welcome to
1:20.1	this podcast, Toco, and welcome back to Hong Kong, Leah. Thanks, David. Thanks, David. Happy to be
1:25.4	with you. Toco, if Amazon has been making its suppliers shoulder additional costs to sell their
1:32.0	products on its platform, how does that collide with Japanese antitrust rules?
1:37.3	Well, for starters, Japan's antitrust enforcement, in addition to being the watchdog of
1:43.3	competition, also functions as the protector of the little guys. trust enforcement in addition to being the watchdog of competition also function
1:44.5	functions as the protector of the little guys and in many cases this means
1:49.9	suppliers and subcontractors that do business with huge manufacturers and
1:54.7	retailers the argument here is that in the bigger picture allowing giant
2:00.2	companies to do as they wish
	...

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