Premium Domain Names for Sale at CrocoDom.com
Review your content’s performance and reach.
Become your target audience’s go-to resource for today’s hottest topics.
Understand your clients’ strategies and the most pressing issues they are facing.
Keep a step ahead of your key competitors and benchmark against them.
add to folder:
Find out more about Lexology or get in touch by visiting our About page.

All questions
Introduction
The Japan Franchise Association reported that during the period from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022 the number of franchise systems had decreased by 1.7 per cent from the previous year to 1,286 systems, and the number of outlets (including outlets owned by a franchisor and franchisee) had decreased by 1.5 per cent from the previous year to 250,288 outlets because of the continuing impact of the covid-19 pandemic. Franchise businesses generated around ¥25.8 trillion in sales during this period.²
The franchise model is often seen in the following industries: convenience stores, bakeries and pastries, fast food restaurants, Japanese pubs, dry cleaners, fitness clubs and private preparatory schools.
Convenience store franchise systems such as 7-Eleven, FamilyMart and Lawson are uniquely dominant in the Japanese franchising market. Sales from convenience store franchise systems accounted for approximately 42.9 per cent (around ¥11.1 trillion) of all sales generated from franchise establishments during the period from 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022.³
In addition to the universally known American franchise systems such as McDonald’s, Subway, Burger King and KFC, Japanese franchise systems also have significant presence in the franchising market in Japan. Examples of franchise systems originating in Japan are Sukiya, Yoshinoya and Matsuya (beef bowl restaurants); MOS Burger (hamburger restaurants); and Doutor Coffee, Café de Crié and UCC Ueshima Coffee (coffee shops).
In recent years, responding to the growing popularity of Japanese cuisine, Japanese franchise systems have ventured overseas. These franchise systems have proactively expanded their businesses in Asian countries, including China, Vietnam, Thailand and other ASEAN countries.
Japanese laws relevant to the franchise business include the Medium-Small Retail Promotion Act (MSRPA), the Anti-Monopoly Act and the Civil Code. The Ministerial Order to Implement the Medium-Small Retail Promotion Act also adds a list of items to be disclosed. The Ministerial Order was most recently amended in 2021. In 2002, the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC), which is in charge of the enforcement of the Anti-Monopoly Act, issued guidelines on franchising (amending the 1983 guidelines) and further amended these in 2010, 2011 and 2021 (Franchise Guidelines). Given the JFTC’s responsibilities, the Franchise Guidelines are prepared from an anti-monopoly perspective for franchise businesses and set out the JFTC’s viewpoints on franchising. In addition, franchise businesses may be subject to the general ethics code, guidelines and independent standards of the Japan Franchise Association.
There are many franchisees that have left their jobs as corporate employees to start their own business. These franchisees tend to lack sufficient knowledge to conduct franchise businesses and a number of problems have emerged as a result. These problems often involve franchisors’ obligations under franchise agreements to provide sufficient explanations to franchisees, franchisees’ obligations to report and franchisees’ anti-competition obligations, as well as franchisors’ abuse of their dominant position. There are many cases where these problems have developed into disputes and litigation.
Market entry
In Japan, there are no restrictions on foreign investment specific to franchises. In addition, there are fundamentally no restrictions on foreign companies granting master franchise rights and similar rights to Japanese corporations.⁴
On the other hand, under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act, if a foreign company acquires the shares or equity of a company other than a listed company⁵ (including when acquiring new shares as a result of formation), or a foreign company will be acquiring 1 per cent or more of the shares of a listed company,⁶ a prior notification will be required, depending on the business type of the investing company. An amendment to the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act in 2020 changed the threshold from 10 to 1 per cent of the shares of a listed company and introduced a new system for exemption from prior notification.
Moreover, under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act, since prior notice is required for instances of investments in restricted business types, such as those that affect Japan’s national security (aeroplanes, satellites, etc.), those concerning public order (telecommunications businesses, broadcasting businesses, passenger transportation businesses, etc.), those regarding public safety (security services, etc.), and investments from countries considered to require examination with regard to the principle of reciprocity, a franchise business is not likely to require submission of a prior notice. Note that the 2020 amendment expanded the scope of businesses subject to prior notification under the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act to include such businesses as information and communication services.
Furthermore, if foreign companies acquire real property in Japan from residents, the foreign companies need to report this to the Minister of Finance through the Bank of Japan within 20 days of the acquisition.
While some of the recent amendments have been mentioned above, it is important to note that there have recently been many important amendments to the Foreign Exchange and Foreign Trade Act.
There is no obligation to seek approval, nor a reporting obligation imposed on local franchisees regarding the payment to foreign franchisors, as long as the amount of the payment is not more than ¥30 million. Tax issues are discussed in Section V.
Intellectual property
In franchising, a well-known brand is the most valuable asset of the business. It is, therefore, essential to protect and reinforce brand trademarks when expanding the franchise business.
If a franchisor fails to apply for and register its trademarks and if a third party who conducts a similar business using commercial indications that are similar to the franchisor’s trademarks emerges, the franchisor will need to claim its rights under the Unfair Competition Prevention Act (UCPA). Under the UCPA, a plaintiff must prove that an indication is well-known or famous among consumers, and proving this could be time-consuming. Furthermore, if the third party has already registered a trademark similar to the franchise system brand or trademarks and has already been using the trademark for products or services similar to those of the franchisor, there is a possibility that the third party may seek an injunction preventing the franchisor from using the franchisor’s own brand and trademarks.
In fact, in the decision rendered on 10 September 2012 (see the website of the courts in Japan for the INAIL case), the Tokyo District Court granted an injunction suspending the use of signage and other materials and ordered the destruction of the signage and other materials, among other orders, based on the third party’s infringement of the registered trademark of the plaintiff, against the defendant who operated a franchising business using a similar mark.
Based on the foregoing, a franchisor should apply for and register its brand or trademarks after deliberating whether it is possible to register the brand or trademarks. Most franchisors follow these practices.
A trademark right means an exclusive right to use a trademark, registration of which has been accepted by the Japan Patent Office following an examination by the Japan Patent Office (registered trademark), for certain products or services (designated products or services)⁷ that arise as a result of the registration of establishment of such a right.⁸ A trademark holder has the exclusive right to use the registered trademark for the designated products or services without any interference by others (exclusive right to use) and, in cases where others use the registered trademark or a similar trademark for identical or similar designated products or services, a trademark holder also has the right to suspend such use by other parties and claim damages (prohibition right).⁹
The common method of determining whether a trademark has been registered is to use a database such as that available from the Japan Platform for Patent Information (formerly the Industrial Property Digital Library). However, because there is a time lag between actual registration and the updating of the database, a prospective applicant often instead obtains a copy of the trademark registry for important trademarks. A copy of the trademark registry may be applied for and obtained at the Japan Patent Office by submitting an issuance request in a designated form and paying a fee of ¥800 per case in ordinary cases. If, in relation to the trademark that a franchisor uses in its franchise business, the franchisor desires to register a new trademark or considers the registered scope to be insufficient, the franchisor should investigate whether there are any trademarks of other companies that have already been registered and consult with experts (such as patent and other attorneys) about the possibility of infringement based on the result of the investigation.
Franchisors often use domain names when carrying out a franchise business. Japan Registry Services manages the database of Japanese domain names comprehensively and multiple registrars accept applications for the registration of individual domain names.
A person who desires to register any trademark must submit to the Commissioner of the Japan Patent Office an application for registration that provides the applicant’s address, name (or name of its representative if the applicant is an entity), date of submission, designated products or designated services and categories of the designated products or designated services, together with documents indicating the trademark and necessary written explanations thereof.
In Japan, if there has been any application for registration of a trademark that is identical or similar to another trademark, the person who first applied for registration is entitled to the trademark, not a person who has simply started using the trademark first. For details of the procedures for registering trademarks, please refer to the website of the Japan Patent Office.¹⁰
Infringement of a trademark refers to an incident where a person without authorisation uses a trademark identical or similar to any registered trademark for designated products or designated services (the designated products or services). The use of an identical or similar trademark for identical or similar designated products or services will constitute an infringement of a trademark (whereas use of an identical or similar trademark for dissimilar designated products or services or use of a dissimilar trademark for identical or similar designated products or services will not constitute an infringement). In summary:
In the Kozo Sushi case,¹¹ in which a third party filed an action against a franchisor, the Court rendered a decision on the standards for determining similarity between trademarks, which relates to the issue of identity or similarity of trademarks in cases of infringement. With respect to similarity between the plaintiff’s ‘kozo’ (in Japanese) trademark and the defendant’s ‘kozo sushi’ (in Japanese) and ‘KOZO SUSHI’ trademarks, the Supreme Court opined that similarity between trademarks must be observed comprehensively in consideration of impression, recollection and association that business partners and consumers may have with respect to a trademark based on its appearance, concept and designation, and that actual circumstances of transactions of the products concerned must be investigated, and similarity between trademarks must be determined based on specific transactions. The Court further opined that similarity in appearance, concept or designation of trademarks may provide certain standards by which to determine whether products using a particular trademark cause misunderstanding or confusion as to the origin of the products; however, trademarks may be said to be dissimilar if, despite similarity in their appearance, concept or designation, there are other aspects of the trademarks that are significantly different or there is no misunderstanding or confusion as to the origin of the products based on the specific circumstances of the transactions. In actual practice, when finding similarity of combined trademarks, as in the Kozo Sushi case, examination of similarity with other trademarks by extracting part of the combined trademarks may often become an issue.¹² According to the precedents, when examining ‘specific circumstances of the transactions’, the court tends to take into account not only the manner of the handling of products and other general aspects of the business environment, but also the degree of fame of the trademarks, existence of other trademarks, use and manner of use of the trademarks and other unique circumstances of the trademarks.
The laws and regulations relating to cybercrime, e-commerce and other internet-related activities that apply to general commercial transactions under Japanese law also apply to franchising activities in Japan. The increasing regulatory trend to protect personal data is also noteworthy.
The Act on the Protection of Personal Information (APPI) of 2003, as amended, sits at the centre of Japan’s regime for the protection of personally identifiable information.
An amendment to the APPI in 2020 became effective from 1 April 2022, and many corporations have already made the appropriate changes to comply with the new regulations properly. The amendment strengthens the rights of data subjects and imposes new obligations on companies that collect and handle personal information. The European Commission has also adopted its adequacy decision regarding Japan, allowing personal data to flow freely between the two economies based on guarantees of strong protection of personal information.
In recent years, while social networking sites have become increasingly popular, there have been many cases where the brand reputation of restaurants and other franchise systems were damaged because of information posted by employees and customers with malicious intent.
Under the law, the personal, economic and social reputation of an entity is protected just like the honour of any individual,¹³ therefore an entity may file an action for defamation. However, it is extremely difficult to restore a brand’s reputation once it has been damaged. Therefore, it is important to prevent such an occurrence by providing seminars for the employees of franchisors and franchisees, as well as establishing internal rules and guidelines.
Franchise law
There are no separate laws that relate specifically and solely to franchising in Japan. The general laws of Japan apply equally to franchise-related issues. Among relevant general laws, the MSRPA and the Anti-Monopoly Act (Japan’s competition law) particularly affect the franchisor–franchisee relationship, while the Japanese Civil Code governs basic contractual relationships. Although it is not mandatory to do so, many franchisors follow the JFTC’s Franchise Guidelines.
There are no general requirements for pre-contractual disclosure imposed on franchisors in general. However, Section 11 of the MSRPA imposes a disclosure duty on a person who presides over a ‘qualifying chain-store business’. Section 4(5) of the MSRPA defines a chain-store business as ‘a business in which, according to standard contract terms (1) goods are sold continually, directly or by a designated third party, and (2) assistance with the operation is given continually, principally to small or medium-sized retailers’.¹⁴ This disclosure should be in writing. As only franchises that involve retail are subject to this provision, it will not apply to pure service franchisees.
The items required to be disclosed under the MSRPA are as follows:
In addition to the above, when entering into a franchise agreement on or after 1 April 2022, the franchisor will be required to disclose matters related to the income and expenses for the past three fiscal years of the franchisee’s stores that are similar in terms of population, traffic volume and other location conditions in the surrounding area (specifically, matters that are the basis for calculating the income or expenses such as sales, cost of sales, and expenses of the franchisee’s stores, and the basis for determining that the locations are similar).
In addition, the Franchise Guidelines recommend that franchisors (not limited to retail or restaurant franchisors) disclose the following items:
Moreover, if the franchisor provides the amount of expected sales or expected profits to a prospective franchisee, it is necessary to base the amount on well-founded facts and the actual performance of existing stores under similar circumstances, and on reasonable calculation methods. In addition, the franchisor is required to provide these well-founded facts and calculation methods to prospective franchisees. In addition, when explaining matters relating to opening hours and temporary closures, it is desirable to provide the franchisee with any information that is known at the time to have a negative impact on the business, such as a shortage of labour during a specific time period or a sharp rise in labour costs. For example, when presenting information on labour shortages, it is necessary to present facts that are grounded in the actual situation, such as job openings at existing stores in a similar environment or the working conditions of the franchisee’s owners.
There is no general requirement for the disclosure of sales forecasts. Once a franchisor discloses sales forecasts to a candidate franchisee, however, a court may review the accuracy of the disclosure. Then, if the forecast is based on inaccurate information or the analysis process is unreasonable, a franchisor may be responsible for damage suffered by the franchisee on the basis of the fair and equitable principle set out in the Japanese Civil Code.
There is no registration requirement for a franchisor or franchisee in Japan.
There is no mandatory clause requirement to be included in a franchise agreement. Parties are free to negotiate the terms of the deal.
Having said that, as discussed further below, some clauses imposed on franchisees, such as non-competition clauses or pre-fixed penalty clauses, may be rendered void by a court on the basis of the general public policy principle set out in the Japanese Civil Code or the Anti-Monopoly Act, even if the franchisee agreed to the clauses.
A non-competition clause, especially one that imposes a non-competition obligation after the termination of a franchise agreement, may be rendered void by a court. A typical situation is that a franchisor seeks injunctive relief or damage compensation against a breaching franchisee and the franchisee raises a counterargument that the clause is void, arguing that the restriction is too excessive. A court determines whether the restriction is excessive or not, considering the scope of the business, place and term of the non-competition clause. In terms of the scope of the business, in a franchise agreement, franchisors typically prohibit franchisees from operating the same or similar businesses. In general, such a restriction is not likely to be considered excessive. In terms of the place of non-competition, the absence of any limitation on the scope of the place would have a high risk of being deemed an excessive restriction. The term of a non-competition clause is normally set out as two years, which is not likely to be considered excessive.
Many franchisors provide a pre-fixed penalty clause in their franchise agreement. Under such a clause, in the event that a franchisee violates any term or condition of the agreement, a franchisee must pay the fixed amount as damages to the franchisor. Franchisors prefer these clauses since it may be difficult to prove the amount of damages warranted by the breach, especially damages claimed for the violation of a non-competition or non-disclosure obligation. An excessive fixed-penalty amount may be voided by a court. In general, as long as the amount is not more than the equivalent of 30 months’ royalty fees, the risk of such a pre-fixed penalty being deemed void would be low.
Guarantees from individuals and companies to the franchisor are generally enforceable. It is relatively common practice for local franchisors to require a director of a franchisee’s business to guarantee the franchisee’s obligations under the franchise agreement.
Note that the Civil Code was recently significantly amended for the first time since its establishment (about 120 years ago) and the amended Code became effective from 1 April 2020. One change introduced to the Civil Code for the protection of individual guarantors requires that at the time the contract is concluded, a limit be set for the guarantee amount, indicating the maximum amount of the guarantor’s responsibility.
Tax
A franchisor may choose its business structure when operating in Japan, such as establishing a corporation (subsidiary) or a branch in Japan. Income of corporations established in Japan is subject to corporate income tax, regardless of where the income is sourced, whether in Japan or foreign countries, but where the income includes profits earned in foreign countries that are taxed in the source countries of that income, foreign taxation deductions are applied. On the other hand, for branches of foreign corporations, only income earned in Japan (domestic-sourced income) is taxable.
Japanese corporate income taxes consist of:
Transactions that include the transfer or lease of assets, or the provision of services as a business in Japan by an enterprise for consideration, are subject to consumption tax, which works like VAT. The rate of consumption tax is 10 per cent. Since the royalty fees paid by franchisees are deemed taxable for consumption tax, a franchisor must collect from franchisees and pay the consumption tax to the tax office.
Local franchisees are also subject to corporate income taxation.
Withholding income tax is assessed against payments of certain taxable income made in Japan. Whether certain payment is subject to withholding income tax is determined in accordance with the type of income and the classification of the recipient of that payment. As long as the recipient is a domestic corporation, payments of only interest and dividends are subject to withholding tax at source. On the other hand, if the payment is made to foreign corporations, tax should be withheld.
There is no single, optimal structure from a tax perspective. There are merits and demerits in choosing among business structure options. For example, if establishing a corporation, the transfer of profits to the foreign parent company is subject to withholding tax, while withholding tax is not applicable to the transfer of profits by a Japanese branch to the main company.
Impact of general law
Where equitable principles or public policy under the Civil Code are violated, the exercise of rights will be restricted, or there is a possibility that a part of a contract will be determined as invalid. The question of whether there is a violation of equitable principles or public policy in a franchise agreement may, therefore, be at issue. Since there is no explicit standard as to what constitutes a violation of equitable principles or public policy, determinations must be made while referring to the accumulation of past court precedents.
For example, with respect to penalties determined on the basis of a franchise agreement, if the penalty amount is too high, special attention is required as there may be a risk of a violation of public policy and of the agreement being deemed invalid.
While there have been court precedents recognising penalties of 60 months’ worth of royalties¹⁸ and precedents recognising a penalty of three times the admission fee,¹⁹ in general, most examples are of penalties being limited to approximately 30 months’ worth of royalties.²⁰
Furthermore, in many instances where a penalty is deemed invalid, only a part of the penalty will become invalid, rather than all of it; and even from the perspective of the Anti-Monopoly Act, there are issues that make it appropriate to limit penalties to approximately 30 months’ worth of royalties.
While in practice it may seem unlikely that a franchisee would be deemed to be an agent or distributor, since the theoretical possibility cannot be eliminated it should be set out in the franchise agreement that the franchisee will not correspond to an agent or distributor.
In addition, as long as the franchisor and franchisee are individual entities, the principle is that the franchisor will not be liable to third parties for the acts of the franchisee. However, under the franchise system, the renown and reputation of the franchisor become important determinants for customers when choosing to purchase products. Therefore, if a third party that transacts with the franchisee incurs damage because of the acts of the franchisee, from the perspective of the third party, not only the franchisee, but also the franchisor should be thought to bear certain liability.
In particular, in many instances franchisees are individuals or companies lacking financial resources, and third parties incurring damage may take into consideration the recoverability of damages and consider pursuing liability against the franchisor that does have financial resources. In this context, issues resulting from the acts of franchisees come to be disputed between franchisors and third parties and, while the numbers are low, court precedents have affirmed the basis for liability through the lending of a trade name, joint tort or respondeat superior. Therefore, it would be prudent to determine from precedents any potential areas of difficulty and take corresponding preventative measures, such as substantiating the provision of manuals, for the franchisor to avoid being sued for providing defective guidance to franchisees.
As there are many laws and regulations on labour in Japan, we will explain the three main labour acts: the Labour Standards Act, the Labour Contract Act and the Labour Union Act.
When the Labour Standards Act is applicable, regulations on working hours and other matters will apply to a person who qualifies as an employee as defined in the Act. Various laws and regulations based on the Labour Standards Act will also apply. Correspondingly, when the Labour Contract Act is applicable, an employee will be entitled to the protection of Labour Contract Act doctrines, such as the abuse of dismissal doctrine, the rescission of an offer of employment doctrine and the termination of employment doctrine, which have been found in previous court decisions to protect employees.
Under the Labour Standards Act, a worker is defined as ‘one who is employed at an enterprise or office and receives wages therefrom, without regard to the kind of occupation’.²¹ Notwithstanding the form of the agreement, if a person corresponds substantially to the definition of a worker, that person will receive protection under the Labour Standards Act.
The following factors have been raised as comprising a standard by which to determine the nature of workers.²²
Furthermore, an employee is defined in the Labour Contract Act as ‘one who is employed, works and receives wages’. The definition comprises two elements, namely employment and payment of wages, as in the Labour Standards Act. Therefore, whether someone is considered to be an employee under the Labour Contract Act will be subject to the same criteria as the Labour Standards Act.
In a franchise agreement, a franchisee is an independent enterprise and it should be deemed that there is freedom to accept or refuse requests to work, instruction for work to be engaged in, etc. In addition, it is reasonable to consider that there is no direction and supervision in the execution of services. Although there is guidance, training and provision of know-how by the franchisor, these are the performance of obligations by the franchisor in conducting a joint business and mutually raising profits, and they can be thought to be fundamentally different in nature from directing and supervising in an employment relationship. With respect to the factor of restrictions on workplace and work times, there may be times when workplaces will actually be restricted (e.g., for shops), and these are obviously necessary for executing business and are different in nature from restrictions on the workplace in employment relationships. Even though there are cases where working time is actually restricted (for example, in the form of shop business hours), the working time of individual workers is not being restricted. All these factors, including those that reinforce a determination of the nature of workers, tend towards denying that a franchisee in a franchise agreement has the nature of a worker.
Accordingly, a franchisee in a franchise agreement is considered not to correspond to the definition of a worker under the Labour Standards Act and the Labour Contract Act.
A recent Tokyo District Court decision found that a franchisee of 7-Eleven is not an employee under the Labour Standards Act and the Labour Contract Act because, among other reasons, the franchise agreement specifies that the franchisee is an ‘independent business operator’.²³
Further, whether a franchisee qualifies as an employee under the Labour Union Act has become a major issue in recent years. Employees are defined in the Labour Union Act as ‘those persons who live on their wages, salaries or other equivalent income, regardless of the kind of occupation’. If an employee under the Labour Union Act organises a labour union that meets the requirements of Sections 2 and 5 of the Labour Union Act (a legal union), the union is entitled to protections under the Labour Union Act, including criminal immunity,²⁴ civil immunity,²⁵ acquisition of legal personality²⁶ and remedies for unfair labour practices.²⁷ The Labour Relations Commission considers the following factors collectively and will determine that an employee falls under the Labour Union Act if a certain level of subordination is found:
As mentioned above, there have been important cases deciding whether a franchisee is an employee under the Labour Union Act or not.
In one case, the union, which was composed of convenience store franchisees, filed a petition for relief with the Labour Relations Commission, claiming the franchisor’s refusal to engage in collective bargaining was an unfair labour practice. The Central Labour Relations Commission denied the franchisees’ employee status and vacated the initial trial order, and each petition for relief was dismissed. The Tokyo District Court made a consideration based on each of the aforementioned factors and affirmed the Central Labour Relations Commission order that the franchisee is not an employee under the Labour Union Act.²⁸ The Tokyo High Court also supported the Tokyo District Court’s judgment.²⁹ In contrast, in a separate case, the Tokyo Labour Relations Commission found that the Kumon franchisor’s refusal to bargain collectively with a union whose members were classroom-leader franchisees constituted an unfair labour practice.
In the Kumon case, the Commission found facts that were different from those of the convenience store cases in the following respects:
With regard to point (c) above, the Central Labour Relations Commission order and the Tokyo District Court’s judgment emphasised that in the convenience store cases the franchisees were not required to perform the duties themselves (in many cases, part-time workers were employed), while in the Kumon case, the Tokyo Labour Relations Commission order pointed out that the franchisees were required to provide direct guidance to the students. This point would affect other factors as well. Therefore, the fact that a franchisee is free to assign other persons to carry out its duties is considered significant grounds for denying that the franchisee qualifies as an employee under the Labour Union Act.
The Consumer Contract Act will be applied to contracts other than labour agreements and with consumers other than business operators. Since a franchisee is an individual business operator and does not correspond to a consumer, the Consumer Contract Act is not likely to be applicable.
The franchisor–franchisee relationship is one of the major targets of the Anti-Monopoly Act. The Franchise Guidelines issued by the JFTC identify actions by franchisors against franchisees that raise issues from an anti-monopoly perspective.
According to the Franchise Guidelines, practices that may be considered anticompetitive include:
Abuse of a superior bargaining position has been the subject of heated debate since 2020. Taking into consideration the recent disputed cases and the results of a survey on transactions between convenience store franchisors and franchisees, on 2 April 2021 the JFTC revised its Franchise Guidelines to address the issue of unauthorised orders, 24/7 operations and the opening of dominant stores, to clarify the concepts underlying the Anti-Monopoly Act and prevent problematic behaviour.
With respect to continuous contracts such as franchise agreements, from the perspective that the expectation of the party (mainly the franchisee in franchise agreements) to continue the contract should be protected, the cancellation of the agreement is generally restricted.
On the other hand, by focusing on the principle of the freedom of contract, opinions recognising the freedom to cancel continuing contracts have been asserted. For example, in a case regarding the exercise of a right to terminate an agreement in a special store agreement for cosmetics, the Tokyo High Court held that an ‘unavoidable reason’ was not required in exercising the right to terminate an agreement.³⁰ In addition, regarding rejections of renewal of franchise agreements, there have been cases in which it was held that the franchise agreement would end with the expiration of the term of the agreement unless there were special circumstances such as the rejection of renewal violating public policy or the principle of good faith.³¹ Moreover, with respect to franchise agreements in particular, there are many court precedents that restrict the cancellation of contracts.
First, bribing public servants in Japan conflicts with the Penal Code and imprisonment of three years or less or a fine of ¥2.5 million will be imposed.³² In addition, bribing foreign public officials conflicts with the Unfair Competition Prevention Act and imprisonment of five years or less or a fine of ¥5 million will be imposed, and it should be noted that if the company fails to give necessary warnings, a fine of ¥300 million or less will be imposed thereon.³³
Current developments
As mentioned above, the Franchise Guidelines and the Ministerial Order to Implement the Medium-Small Retail Promotion Act have recently been amended.
In addition, the Japan Franchise Association (JFA) recently released an alternative dispute resolution (ADR) procedure to resolve issues between companies that manage convenience stores and their franchisees. The JFA commenced its ADR procedure on 1 October 2021.
add to folder:
If you would like to learn how Lexology can drive your content marketing strategy forward, please email [email protected].
© Copyright 2006 – 2023 Law Business Research

source
Premium Domain Names:

A premium domain name is a highly sought-after domain that is typically short, memorable, and contains popular keywords or phrases. These domain names are considered valuable due to their potential to attract more organic traffic and enhance branding efforts. Premium domain names are concise and usually consist of one to two words or two to four individual characters.

Top-Level Domain Names for Sale on Crocodom.com:

If you are looking for top-level domain names for sale, you can visit Crocodom.com. Crocodom.com is a platform that offers a selection of domain names at various price ranges. It is important to note that the availability of specific domain names may vary, and it’s recommended to check the website for the most up-to-date information.

Contact at crocodomcom@gmail.com:

If you have any inquiries or need assistance regarding the domain names available on Crocodom.com, you can reach out to them via email at crocodomcom@gmail.com. Feel free to contact them for any questions related to the domain names or the purchasing process.

Availability on Sedo.com, Dan.com, and Afternic.com:

Apart from Crocodom.com, you can also explore other platforms like Sedo.com, Dan.com, and Afternic.com for available domain names. These platforms are popular marketplaces for buying and selling domain names. Each platform may have its own inventory of domain names, so it’s worth checking multiple sources to find the perfect domain name for your needs.

#PremiumDomains #DomainInvesting #DigitalAssets #DomainMarketplace #DomainFlipping #BrandableDomains #DomainBrokers #DomainAcquisition #DomainPortfolio #DomainIndustry #DomainAuctions #DomainInvestors #DomainSales #DomainExperts #DomainValue #DomainBuyers #DomainNamesForSale #DomainBrand #DomainInvestment #DomainTrading