Litigation or Litigiousness? Explaining Japan's “Litigation Bubble” (2006-2010)”

In Japan, the period from 1986 to 1991 is often referred to as the baburu keiki (literally, “bubble economy”), which is a colloquial Japanese expression to indicate the “Japanese asset price bubble”. During this period, the Japanese economy experienced rapid growth followed by a sharp decline that eventually led to a long period of stagnation. This paper would like to critically address another “bubble”. In the period 2006–2010, litigation in Japan was abnormally inflated by some peculiar factors and then started to decline in 2011. The main point is that the proportions of this wobbling increase and decrease are too big to be explained by physiological factors, and therefore its possible causes need to be analyzed in detail. This would also lead to some broader comparative reflections on the increase of litigation in Japan and about Japanese law in general.