欧美文化:Criminal complaints filed against Japan's ad giant Dentsu, others over Olympics bid-riggin

TOKYO, Feb. 28 (Xinhua) -- Japan's antitrust watchdog on Tuesday filed a criminal complaint against advertising giant Dentsu Group Inc., five other companies and a high profile ex-Olympic organizing committee executive, among others, over alleged bid-rigging linked to the 2021 Tokyo Games.

The criminal complaint brought by Japan's Fair Trade Commission has been filed against Dentsu and some individuals including Yasuo Mori, a former senior official of the Tokyo Games organizing committee, Koji Henmi, former assistant head within Dentsu Inc., a Dentsu Group unit, and five other people.

Having received the complaints from the antitrust watchdog, Japanese prosecutors are now also likely to arraign, along with seven individuals, Japan's second-largest advertising agency Hakuhodo Inc. at some point later Tuesday, informed sources said.

Mori, arrested earlier this month along with three others for his connection to a suspected and expansive bid-rigging operation, and if found guilty, will have violated Japan's anti-monopoly law by altering the results of bids for lucrative contracts pertaining to the planning and running of Olympic test events and competitions.

Six company officials are also alleged to have been in cahoots with Mori to rig the bidding process in 2018, informed sources also said.

Hiroshi Igarashi, Dentsu Group President and CEO, has already told prosecutors that Dentsu wittingly participated in the bid-rigging for the quadrennial sporting event, delayed by a year due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Former executive of the organizing committee Haruyuki Takahashi, meanwhile, a former senior managing director at Dentsu, has been indicted four times.

Prosecutors indicted Takahashi for receiving bribes to the tune of around 198 million yen (1.45 million U.S. dollars).

In return for the huge backhanders, Takahashi orchestrated companies becoming official sponsors of the Games or securing companies the rights to sell official merchandise.

Already plagued by this shocking bribery scandal, the ongoing revelations of bid-rigging involving the Olympic committee's own and well-known former executive, two of the country's best known advertising agencies, a host of other companies and top personnel, have further and irreversibly tarnished the imaged of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2021.