6 firms suspected of rigging bids for ASDF office furniture orders+

TOKYO, June 18 Kyodo -
The Japan Fair Trade Commission searched the offices of six office furniture
makers Thursday over alleged bid rigging in connection with orders from the Air
Self-Defense Force.

The antimonopoly watchdog also sent officials to the First ASDF Depot in Chiba
Prefecture and other ASDF offices in an apparent bid to check if the ASDF side
orchestrated the bid rigging.
The six companies are Uchida Yoko Co., Kokuyo Furniture Co., Itoki Corp.,
Okamura Corp., Lion Office Products Corp. and Plus Corp.
The firms and their sales agents are suspected of rigging bids for ASDF orders
for office furniture including desks, chairs and bookshelves since 2005. Former
senior ASDF officials have been given jobs at some of the firms.
The searches were done in connection with an internal probe by the Defense
Ministry into the depot's contracts, suspected to have been forged between
fiscal 2005 and 2007, Vice Defense Minister Kohei Masuda said Thursday.
The investigation uncovered ''unusual bidding situations,'' including
''extremely fixed outcomes in terms of the share and distribution'' of the
firms involved, the ministry's top bureaucrat said at a news conference, adding
that the ministry notified the antimonopoly watchdog of its findings in May.
Masuda pledged full cooperation with the authorities in connection with the case.
The ASDF awards orders worth 2 billion to 3 billion yen each year for office
furniture through competitive bidding in the four months from December.
==Kyodo