Japan: Adopted Act on Improvement of Transparency and Fairness in Trading on Specified Digital Platforms

The "Act on Improvement of Transparency and Fairness in Trading on Specified Digital Platforms" is adopted by the Japanese Diet. The Act introduces transparency obligations for "specified digital platforms providers". In particular, such providers are requested to: - exhaustively disclose the terms and conditions to sellers and consumers on the platforms, and give advance notice when changes are made; - implement fair procedures and systems based on the guidelines provided by the Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI); - submit a report on their business operations to METI every year. On the basis of such a report, the METI will evaluate the operational status of the provider and publish the evaluation results.