{"id":919795,"date":"2026-10-07T20:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-07T20:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/919795\/"},"modified":"2026-10-07T20:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T20:32:11","slug":"asahi-kirin-sapporo-and-suntory-raided-over-price-collusion-accusations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/919795\/","title":{"rendered":"Asahi, Kirin, Sapporo and Suntory raided over price-collusion accusations"},"content":{"rendered":"

Japanese authorities have raided four global beer manufacturers over suspicions they colluded to raise their prices.<\/p>\n

Asahi Breweries, Kirin Brewery, Sapporo Breweries and Suntory have confirmed the raids on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

The four beer giants make up around 90 per cent of Japan’s beer market share \u2014 and are popular brands in Australia too.<\/p>\n

Sales of Asahi’s Super Dry variety in Australia have increased 40 per cent in Australia since 2020, according to the company.<\/p>\n

Japanese beer is suddenly everywhere<\/a><\/p>\n

Due to a combination of business and travel Japanese brewers have come to dominate our domestic beer market.<\/p>\n

Japan’s public broadcaster NHK said the Fair Trade Commission was investigating whether the companies had formed a cartel and colluded to raise their prices at the same time over several years, together citing factors including rising raw material costs.<\/p>\n

The anti-trust watchdog is expected to continue its investigation and could file a criminal complaint if they were found to have breached the country’s anti-monopoly laws.<\/p>\n

In statements, the four beer makers separately said they intended to cooperate with \u2060the investigation.<\/p>\n

Suntory said in a statement that it was “undergoing an on-site inspection by the Fair Trade Commission on suspicion of breaching the anti-monopoly act in relation to its alcohol trading activities”.<\/p>\n

\"Condensation<\/p>\n

Asahi beer in Australia is manufactured locally. (Reuters: Tim Wimborne, file)<\/p>\n

Asahi beer in Australia is manufactured locally with the beer brewer telling the ABC earlier this year it employed almost 4,000 Australians across 17 manufacturing sites.<\/p>\n

Kirin Ichiban and Sapporo are also manufactured in Australia, with Japanese beer only representing about 4 per cent of beer imports into Australia.<\/p>\n

\"Plastic<\/p>\n

Japanese beverage manufacturer Kirin owns Lion, which produces many of Australia’s most popular beers.
\n\u00a0 (Reuters: Issei Kato\/File)<\/p>\n

The ABC has contacted Asahi, Kirin and Sapporo for a response about whether Australian production of the beer has been impacted.<\/p>\n

Shares of the beer makers fell nearly 4 per cent following news of the raids.<\/p>\n

Ice cream giants alleged of cartel price fixing in Japan<\/a><\/p>\n

Six of Japan’s biggest ice cream companies are under suspicion of forming a cartel to hike up prices.<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, in the midst of a heatwave, six major Japanese ice cream companies were similarly raided over suspicion of colluding to hike their prices.<\/p>\n

If the companies are found to have have violated anti-monopoly laws, the country’s anti-trust watchdog will issue a fine and order the companies improve their business practices.<\/p>\n

ABC\/AFP<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Japanese authorities have raided four global beer manufacturers over suspicions they colluded to raise their prices. Asahi Breweries,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":919796,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[243228,64,63,33773,99,243229,9074],"class_list":["post-919795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-asahi","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-beer","tag-business","tag-kirin","tag-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919795","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=919795"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/919795\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/919796"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=919795"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=919795"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=919795"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}