300 M. Yen Sought for Dentsu over Tokyo Games Bid-Rigging

Tokyo, Sept. 18 (Jiji Press)--Japanese public prosecutors Wednesday demanded that advertising agency Dentsu Group Inc. be fined 300 million yen for violating the antimonopoly law by rigging bids related to the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics in 2021.

In a hearing at Tokyo District Court, the prosecutors also demanded a prison term of two years for Koji Henmi, 57, former assistant head of the sports department of the company’s Dentsu Inc. unit over his involvement in the bid-rigging for contracts for planning Tokyo Games-linked test events and other projects.

The prosecutors claimed that Henmi played a central role in coordinating winners of the contracts in advance by meeting with officials of other companies involved, based on plans he was told of by a 57-year-old former senior official of the Tokyo Games organizing committee, who has been found guilty over the bid-rigging case.

Henmi bears a huge criminal responsibility, as Dentsu Group obtained a large amount of economic benefits, the prosecutors said.

According to the indictment, Henmi conspired with the former organizing committee official and others to decide in advance the winners of the contracts and to have only the preselected winners take part in the bidding in February-July 2018.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]