The Fair Trade Commission released on July 9 its draft guideline for prohibited cases of holding companies under the revised Antimonopoly Law.
The revised law, to take effect before the end of the year, basically allows the formation of holding companies, but it will continue to prohibit cases in which "excessive concentration" of economic power is likely. The FTC is to finalize its guidelines, including a specific definition of excessive concentration, by the time the law takes effect, which will be no later than six months from its promulgation June 18.
The draft proposal provides definitions for three types of prohibited cases. First, it prohibits the formation of holding companies when groupwide total assets exceed 15 trillion yen and the group already has major firms in five or more main business fields.