The Tokyo Olympics were held by the whole cartel – Sport – Kommersant

The corruption scandal surrounding the Tokyo Olympics has been overgrown with new accusations. On Tuesday, the country’s authorities accused several companies and representatives of the Organizing Committee of cartel collusion in holding tenders for organizing events related to the Olympics.

The Tokyo District Court indicted six companies and seven individuals at once for violating the country’s antitrust laws. Associated Press. All of them are accused of organizing a cartel in order to obtain contracts for hosting events related to the Olympic Games held in the capital of Japan in 2021.

The accused companies include Japan’s largest advertising agency Dentsu Group, Hakuhodo and Tokyu Agency, and event organizers Same Two, Cerespo and Fuji Creative Corp.

The list of individuals accused in this case included the head of the organizing committee of the Games, Yoshiro Mori, and a number of heads of the above-mentioned companies.

According to the investigation, the companies and executives “conspired to restrict each other’s business activities in order to obtain contracts” to host events during the test events before the Olympics. Their actions were “contrary to the interests of society and significantly limited competition,” the prosecutor’s office said in a statement.

Yoshiro Mori, as well as three businessmen, have already been arrested as part of this criminal case.

According to the investigation, they falsified the procedure for conducting tenders for a total amount of about ¥40 billion ($300 million).

Dentsu Group said in response to the allegations that it takes “the situation very seriously” and apologized for its actions. In addition, the company set up an external committee of experts to investigate the case and asked five of its current and former employees to return part of their wages to the company as compensation for the damage caused to it. How many employees will have to return, the company did not specify.

The current corruption allegations are not the first to be linked to the Tokyo Olympics. So, last summer in Tokyo was arrested a member of the organizing committee of the Games, Haruyuki Takahashi, who is suspected of receiving more than 50 bribes from the large clothing manufacturer Aoki Holdings, which subsequently received the status of an official partner of the Games and a contract for sewing official costumes for athletes. The total amount of Haruyuki Takahashi’s bribes was then estimated at ¥51 million ($380,000). Subsequently, both representatives of Aoki and the former president of ADK Holdings, one of Japan’s largest advertising agencies, acknowledged giving bribes to Haruyuki Takahashi. In accepting bribes from Aoki totaling ¥2 million ($15,000) suspected and Yoshiro Mori.

Kirill Sarkhanyants