Cartels still exist
The JFTC regards cartels as core offenses against free and fair competition and regularly imposes sanctions. The JFTC also has the authority to refer cartel and bid-rigging cases for criminal prosecution, and it has done so in particularly serious cases. For instance, in 2018, criminal proceedings were brought against four construction companies accused of bid-rigging for the construction of new stations on the maglev railway, which will connect Tokyo and Nagoya. Although there was a time when Japan was referred to as the "cartel archipelago", those days are long gone. The exemptions for cartels in the AMA have all been abolished and only narrow exemptions survive in special legislation, such as the Small and Medium-sized Enterprise Organization Act, which allows certain cooperative price-setting by SME cooperatives or federations to counterbalance bargaining disparities, subject to approval. ==See also==