Legal concerns against auctions and securities conventions: A Japanese perspective

This chapter introduces the two newly emerging issues in the C2C and B2B area in the Japanese IT laws: (a) anti-fraud measures in Internet auctions and (b) treatment of the Hague Securities Convention. An auction provider's liability for a tenant's fraud beyond the freedom of contracts is not clear. If consumers bear risk, adequate disclosure should be promoted. In addition, as this issue is complex, several measures including advertisement regulations against the small business consumers and development of escrow payment techniques, should be promoted. Regarding the Hague Securities Convention, the United States pushes other countries to ratify it but the EU questions to ratify it. This chapter considers that the ratification of the Hague Convention for unifying the conflict of laws and the UNIDROIT Convention for unifying the substantive laws should be done at the same time, in order to avoid some side effects.