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Supreme Court rejects appeal to verdict on Yamaha-Honda price cartel
The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal lodged by Yamaha and Honda against a KPPU verdict that the two manufacturers had cemented their dominance of the Indonesian motorcycle market with a pricing agreement.
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A man works at a Honda motorcycle plant. (Tribunnews)
T
he Supreme Court has rejected an appeal by Japanese automakers Yamaha and Honda, who had been found guilty by the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) of forming a price cartel for their automated scooters.
The rejection was announced on April 23 and refers to the KPPU’s verdict from February 2017. The KPPU had found Yamaha and Honda guilty of breaking Article 5 (1) of Law No. 5/1999, which states that businesspeople are not allowed to set a fixed price on goods or services with their competitors in the same market segment.
According to the verdict document, the KPPU investigators found that Yamaha president director Yoichiro Kojima had exchanged emails with Honda president director Toshiyuki Inuma in January 2015 on pricing for their automated scooters marketed in Indonesia. The two had met for golf twice before, namely in 2013 and 2014.
The KPPU maintained that the pricing agreement resulted in an oligopolistic motorcycle market, in which Yamaha and Honda rose to become market leaders.
According to the investigation, which started in 2016, Honda dominated the automated scooter market with a market share of 68 percent, followed by Yamaha at 30 percent. The only two other players in the segment, Suzuki and TVS, held a mere 2 percent and 1 percent, respectively.
As of 2018, the same two companies still ruled the domestic market. Honda had a share of 74.6 percent, while Yamaha held 22.8 percent, data from the Indonesian Motorcycle Industry Association (AISI) show.
In rejecting the appeal, the Supreme Court has ordered Yamaha and Honda to pay a total of Rp 47.5 billion (US$3.33 million) in fines in accordance with the KPPU’s verdict.
