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History is littered with cautionary tales concerning the lengths corporations will go to in order to maximize their profits. That includes companies that have attempted to dodge laws designed to prevent them from exploiting consumers, including some in Japan that have been accused of joining forces to create an “ice cream cartel.”
The modern world economy is a largely capitalist system that’s incredibly complex but is built on a foundation of fairly elementary principles. It’s also a constantly evolving ecosystem that has reached its current form following centuries of trial and error and multiple eras that have exposed fundamental flaws that required government intervention to address.
For example, the United States experienced a fairly seismic shift in how business was done toward the end of the 19th century.
The elites who ushered in the Gilded Age were targeted when the federal government passed sweeping antitrust legislation. Those laws targeted the monopolies that had a stranglehold on major industries like oil, steel, and tobacco as well as companies that were theoretically competitors but formed syndicates to control prices for collective gain at the expense of the American consumer.
As things currently stand, more than 120 countries around the globe have similar antitrust laws on the books. That includes Japan, which is using them to go after some ice cream companies that may have colluded with each other.
Authorities in Japan are investigating six companies that allegedly formed an “ice cream cartel” to raise prices
Japan was essentially forced to adopt antitrust laws during America’s occupation and reconstruction efforts in the wake of World War II, and legislation that was enacted in 1947 led to the formation of the Japan Fair Trade Commission, which is tasked with enforcing those regulations.
According to The Guardian, the JFTC recently turned its attention to six companies that are responsible for producing the bulk of the country’s ice cream supply, as the offices of Akagi Nyugyo, Ezaki Glico, Lotte, Meiji, Morinaga Milk Industry, and Morinaga & Co. were recently raided in connection with an investigation concerning the cartel they’ve been accused of forming.
The companies in question have publicly cited inflation for the rising cost of their products, but officials believe they have spent years communicating through back channels to increase retail prices that have disproportionately risen compared to the raw cost of the ingredients.
The outlet notes NHK, a Japanese public broadcasting outlet, charted four different price increases involving frozen dairy products peddled by Meiji and Morinaga Milk between 2022 and 2025 and discovered the hikes were instituted at the exact same time in each instance.
The JFTC said the companies are under the microscope for potential violations of the Antimonopoly Act and added all six are “fully cooperating” with their efforts.