Japan’s Fair Trade Commission decided on Monday to prosecute six companies, including the country’s largest advertising agency, Dentsu, for allegedly rigging bids for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games test events.
The Japanese financial authorities believe that the companies, which also include the second largest national advertising company, Hakuhodo, or the event organization firm Cerespo, collided with Tokyo 2020 deputy executive director Yasuo Mori, to manipulate grants for tests.
A total of six companies and seven people, including Mori, will be brought to trial for this plot in question.
It is believed that these companies would have negotiated in advance, in collusion with the organizing committee, the concessions to determine the winners of the bids for the organization of the test events of the last Japanese Olympic event, which would be a violation of the laws country’s antitrust.
Mori was arrested earlier this month in connection with the case.
The test events of the Olympic Games. Tokyo 2020 were held between 2018 and 2021, prior to the postponed international competition, and were intended to give organizers and sports federations the opportunity to test the operation of the events.
The irregularities would have affected events valued at a total of more than 40,000 million yen (about $296 million dollars), both the aforementioned sports tests and commissions of another nature that were granted to these companies in relation to the Games, according to details published by the public channel NHK.
If the accusations are proven, “it would be really regrettable and I think it would negatively affect the image of the Olympic Games and sport in general,” Japanese government spokesman Hirokazu Matsuno said on Tuesday about the new court case.
Matsuno revealed that the national sports agency is carrying out a study on the orientation of the organization of international competitions and will publish its findings in March.
This is the most recent judicial process in the framework of the investigation of the alleged irregularities and bribery around the sporting event held in the summer of 2021 in the Japanese capital, and which would have affected not only these tenders, but also the concession sponsorship of the Games.
The general investigation started after the detection of the receipt of alleged bribes by one of the members of the organizing committee, Haruyuki Takahashi, and has affected important firms such as Dentsu, the Kadokawa publishing house and the Aoki suit store chain.
Several of those involved in the plot, including Dentsu, would have acknowledged the accusations during interrogations.
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