Efficiency Considerations in Merger Regulation (Japanese)

How is merger-generating efficiency dealt with in antitrust regulation? The Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) presents a consumer welfare standard, which focuses on the change of consumer welfare in evaluating efficiency. Guidelines of U.S. antitrust law and those of EU competition law support this standard as well, and the experience in Canadian competition law reveals the difficulty of applying a total welfare standard. In this paper, we examine the possibility of convergence between market power analysis and efficiency consideration under the consumer welfare standard. Based upon that, we propose a modified consumer welfare standard, under which welfare can be traded off among consumers.