n Transactions of the Centre for Business Law - Asia : Chapter 7

Abstract

The Japanese culture does not take kindly to comparative advertising although it has been recognised as a legal activity since 1986, provided that the contents are "impartial and objectively verifiable, and that the competing product is not subject to slander or libel". The Japanese population however is of the opinion that "explicit comparative advertising ... is ill-mannered, crass and generally disruptive to civilized relations between competitors".