• Yasuo Mori, 56, sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for four years, over bid-rigging linked to the 2021 Games

TOKYO: Tokyo District Court on Tuesday sentenced a former senior official of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games organizing committee to two years in prison, suspended for four years, over bid-rigging linked to the 2021 Games.

Presiding Judge Kenji Yasunaga handed down the sentence to Yasuo Mori, 56, for violating the antimonopoly law, noting that “it was a large bid-rigging scheme, with contracts won by companies totaling some 43.7 billion yen.”

Prosecutors had sought a sentence of two years in prison.

It is the first ruling among the cases against seven people, including Mori, and six companies, including advertising agencies Dentsu Group Inc. and Hakuhodo Inc., indicted over the alleged bid-rigging. Ad agency ADK Marketing Solutions Inc. avoided charges after voluntarily reporting the bid-rigging under a leniency scheme.

Yasunaga said that Mori “impeded fair and free competition to a significant extent” as most of the Games venue-related contracts put up for competitive tenders were bid on and won by companies predetermined by Mori and others.

“Mori played a central role, leading coordination among companies to decide contract winners with his influence as a senior official of the party awarding contracts,” he said.

But the judge decided to suspend the sentence as “it cannot be denied that he rigged the bids out of a sense of responsibility to make the Games a success.”

According to the ruling, Mori conspired with Koji Henmi, 56, former assistant head of the sports department of Dentsu Inc., now a Dentsu Group unit, and others between around February and July 2018 to settle in advance the winners of contracts for planning Games-related test events and other work. They colluded so that only the predetermined winners bid for contracts.

JIJI Press