The United States is now extending the reach of U.S. antitrust laws beyond U.S. borders to strike at such practices as bid rigging, price fixing, industrial subsidies, and other cartel behavior by foreign companies that hurt U.S. international competitiveness. Since 1984, the United States has also granted joint U.S. Research-and-development ventures limited immunity from antitrust suits, including exemption from treble damages for private lawsuits against such ventures, in order to counter strategic trade policies and targeting by other nations and regions, particularly Japan and the members of the European Union. These and other trade restrictions, however, were greatly reduced as a result of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations, which took effect in April 1995 and was fully implemented by 2004.