U.S. May Use Antitrust Laws to Boost Exports : Trade: The Justice Department considers bringing foreign firms into court if they conspire to shut out U.S. companies.

The Justice Department is considering the first concerted effort to prosecute foreign companies that illegally restrain U.S. trade, the department’s antitrust chief said Monday.

“We would be looking (for enforcement) in the U.S. courts where the effect of a conspiracy . . . is to restrain U.S. trade,” Assistant Atty. Gen. James F. Rill said at a department briefing. “If they do business in the United States, the fact that the conspiracy actually took place overseas wouldn’t prevent us from exercising jurisdiction” if the conspiracy affected the United States, he added.

Such an attempt to apply the prohibitions of the Sherman Antitrust Act to foreign firms is “a matter under review now,” Rill said, emphasizing that no decision had been made. “But I’m giving you an idea of the direction I’m looking at.”

Rill, who has been on the job for nine months, made clear that he is placing a high priority on using antitrust laws to pursue companies that violate prohibitions on bid-rigging, group boycotts, price-fixing and market allocation to restrict U.S. export opportunities.

The antitrust chief said he “is studying very actively” amendments or clarifications of the department’s antitrust guidelines for international business “to make clear that the department will not tolerate violations of the U.S. antitrust laws . . . that impair export opportunities for U.S. business.”

He declined to cite any country or companies as possible targets of an expanded enforcement effort.

Rill outlined his new priority as he briefed reporters on what he described as “very, very significant steps” taken on antitrust matters during last week’s U.S.-Japan trade talks. He said the interim agreement added up to “a dramatic departure from the historic antitrust enforcement regime in Japan.”

Rill said the Japanese government agreed to:

* More aggressive enforcement of its anti-monopoly act. Most of the antitrust measures were adopted in 1947 and patterned after U.S. law but have not been enforced strictly or effectively. The Japanese promised more money and staff for the Japanese Fair Trade Commission, the counterpart of the Justice Department’s antitrust division and the Federal Trade Commission.

* Amend the anti-monopoly act to increase monetary penalties and to take steps to more actively enforce criminal sanctions--including prison sentences for cartel practices.

* Make enforcement more visible “so the public will know what offenses have been charged and by whom it is alleged they’ve been committed.”

* Make it easier to collect personal damages when an individual or firm is hurt by violations of the anti-monopoly act.

* Make clear the practices that are exclusionary and unlawful in distributing goods and practices within the system of keiretsu --economic groups or networks formed by major banks and trading companies and linked by cross-shareholdings and common banking affiliations.

In distribution, trade talk participants focused on so-called premium codes, under which Japanese industry limits the number of incentives that manufacturers can offer distributors or those a company can offer salesmen. The practice makes entry into the market difficult.

Before the final report on the trade talks is issued in the summer, Rill said, there must be “more specificity” on the commitments.

Rill saw little chance that the agreements by Japan are only an insincere attempt designed to relieve U.S. pressure over the trade imbalance between the two nations.

“I really don’t think they could have made the specific commitments that they made without having a genuine intent to follow through,” he said.