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 defense side asked for a suspended sentence. The court is slated to issue a ruling on Jan. 30 next year.

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

With Dentsu Group earning some 700 million yen in gross margins from related operations, Henmi bears a huge criminal responsibility, the prosecutors said.

In the closing argument, the defense side argued that although the winners were coordinated in the competitive bidding for the test event planning, there was no agreement among the companies on operations to manage the main events, which were discretionary contracts. Dentsu Group is therefore not guilty of the allegations related to the operations, it said.

In his closing statement, Henmi said that he tried to meet the request from the organizing committee, not for Dentsu's benefit. "I hope the court will make a careful decision."

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.

Over the case, Dentsu Group and five other companies, including another ad agency Hakuhodo Inc., and seven individuals, including the former organizing committee official, have been indicted.

In July this year, Hakuhodo was ordered to pay 200 million yen in fines, while the former president of a Hakuhodo group company was sentenced to 18 months in prison, suspended for three years. The company and the former president have appealed the rulings.

END