More Firms Raided over Alleged Tokyo Games Test Event Bid-Rigging

Tokyo, Nov. 29 (Jiji Press)--Japanese prosecutors and antitrust officials on Tuesday raided major advertising agency ADK Marketing Solutions Inc. and a firm under the aegis of ad giant Dentsu Group Inc. <4324> for their possible involvement in alleged bid-rigging for contracts related to test events for last year's Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.

Investigators from the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office's special squad and the Fair Trade Commission jointly searched ADK and production company Dentsu Live Inc. on suspicion of violating the antimonopoly law. The authorities also searched a major event company that is not among the nine winning firms for orders for which bids are suspected to have been rigged.

Including ADK and Dentsu Live, eight of the nine firms have been raided by the authorities. Dentsu Inc., the core unit of Dentsu Group, and event company Cerespo Co. <9625> were searched on Friday. Ad agencies Hakuhodo Inc. and Tokyu Agency Inc., and event companies Same Two Inc. and Fuji Creative Corp. were raided on Monday.

The authorities suspect that Dentsu and others prearranged winners for bidding for planning and planning assistance services for the test events, ordered by the Tokyo Games organizing committee in 2018.

Bidding took place for 26 such contracts, with one of them attracting no bids.

[Copyright The Jiji Press, Ltd.]