On Oct. 31, 2013, Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) submitted a brief in support of the defendants in one of the TFT-LCD Flat Panel Antitrust Litigation cases, requesting the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Illinois to reconsider a ruling of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, which held that the U.S. Foreign Trade Antitrust Improvement Act (FTAIA) did not preclude U.S. liability for sales of price-fixed LCD panels that never entered the United States.

Motorola sued a number of Korean, Taiwanese and Japanese manufacturers, alleging that they participated in an international price-fixing conspiracy for LCD panels. The case was filed in federal court in Illinois but was transferred for pre-trial purposes to the multidistrict litigation in the Northern District of California. Defendants sought summary judgment with respect to purchases by Motorola's non-U.S. subsidiaries of LCD panels and products containing them that never entered the United States. The MDL court denied the motion on the ground that some of the negotiations to purchase the panels took place in the United States, and they therefore had a direct and reasonably foreseeable effect on U.S. commerce. The case was remanded to the district court in Illinois for trial, and defendants asked the Illinois court to reconsider the MDL court's order. The Illinois court decided to accept briefing from the defendants.

METI filed an amicus brief in support of defendants' position that the FTAIA blocked Motorola's claims based on LCD panels that never entered the United States. The brief METI submitted was a copy of the same brief it submitted in F. Hoffmann-La Roche, LTD. v. Empagran S.A., 542 U.S. 155 (2004), the U.S. Supreme Court's seminal decision explaining the scope and contours of the FTAIA. METI's brief argues that the FTAIA "should not be interpreted to allow foreign purchasers of goods from foreign corporations in foreign markets to bring actions in the United States courts for alleged injuries under United States antitrust laws. ... Giving foreign purchasers the right to damages for purely foreign market transactions undermines the important principles of comity, respect due to a sovereign nation to regulate conduct within its own national territory. Such an interpretation of the FTAIA has international public policy implications which would adversely affect the ability of the government of Japan to regulate its own economy and govern its own society."

It is unusual for METI to submit amicus briefs in proceedings in the United States, so its resubmission of its brief in the Empagran case demonstrates a strong interest in protecting Japanese companies from the application of the U.S. antitrust laws to conduct that takes place outside the United States and which does not affect products imported into the United States.

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