TOKYO OLYMPICS CORRUPTION - PART 12

 Former director of the Olympic Organizing Committee decides the amount of sponsorship - Ohiro is the language school company at the window

In the corruption case surrounding the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, former director of the Games Organizing Committee suspect Haruyuki Takahashi (78) = re-arrested on suspicion of bribery = It was found out through interviews with related parties that the advertising company "Ohiro" is suspected of effectively deciding the amount of sponsorship of the language school management company that served as the contact point for the sponsorship contract. At that time, negotiations between Ohiro and the language school management company were difficult, and the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors' Special Investigation Department seems to believe that the former director set an amount that the language school management company was satisfied with and made it convenient for the negotiations to succeed.

Before the Games, Ohiro was in charge of negotiating a contract for a language school management company as a subcontractor of Dentsu, a major advertising company that was entrusted by the organizing committee as a "dedicated agency" to attract sponsors. The person in charge of the negotiations was Yoshikazu Taniguchi (57), an executive officer of the company, who was arrested on suspicion of bribing a former board member on May 27.

According to people familiar with the matter, the former board member proposed a sponsorship amount to Dentsu and Ohiro around 2016, and Ohiro negotiated with the language school management company accordingly. The initial proposal amount was 1.4 billion yen, of which 1 billion yen was sponsored by the Olympics and Paralympics, and 400 million yen was sponsored by the Rugby World Cup (World Cup) to be held in '19. However, when the language school management company showed reluctance and negotiations were about to break down, they withdrew the sponsorship fee for the Rugby World Cup and reduced the sponsorship fee for the Olympics and Paralympics to 700 million yen.

After that, out of the 700 million yen sponsored by the language school management company to the organizing committee, about 52 million yen was paid to Dentsu, of which half of the amount, about 26 million yen, is said to have been Ohiro's remuneration.

On the other hand, Ohiro is suspected of remitting a total of about 15 million yen to the former director four times in January '19 ~ February '22, and the Special Investigation Department judged that this remittance was a bribe for Ohiro to become a subcontractor of Dentsu.

According to officials, the former board member has denied the charges, saying he "does not recognise him."

Meanwhile, the Tokyo District Court issued a decision on May 29 to grant bail to Kyoji Maniwa, 63, a KADOKAWA employee and former head of the Olympic Affairs Office, who was charged with bribery on the KADOKAWA route. The former chief was released on bail on the same day after paying a 7 million yen bail bond.

HARUYUKI TAKAHASHI - JAPANESE BUSINESSMAN

KADOKAWA Chairman Indicted for Bribery - Bribery to Former Director Takahashi Olympic Corruption

In a corruption case related to the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors' Special Investigation Department indicted the Tokyo District Court on the 4th against Tsuguhiko Kadokawa (79), chairman of the publishing giant "KADOKAWA" (Tokyo), for bribing Haruyuki Takahashi (78) = re-arrested on suspicion of bribery = former director of the organizing committee of the Games in return for facilitating the selection of sponsors for the Games. According to people familiar with the matter, Kadokawa has denied the charges, saying, "I am not aware that I gave bribes to former board members."

According to the indictment, Chairman Kadokawa conspired with two defendants, Toshiyuki Yoshihara (64), who was an advisor to the company and senior managing director in charge of the Olympics, and Kyoji Maniwa (63), an employee of the company and former head of the office in charge of the Olympics = both charged with bribery = to ask the former director to select a sponsor for an amount of up to 380 million yen. It is said that he gave bribes totaling about 69 million yen to former directors on nine occasions from September 2019 ~ January 21.

A total of about 76 million yen was transferred from KADOKAWA to the consulting company "Commons 2" (Tokyo), where Kazumasa Fukami (73) = re-arrested on suspicion of bribery = is the president, but the Special Investigation Department prosecuted only the amount where the statute of limitations for bribery charges (3 years) had not been established. On September 27, the Special Investigation Department indicted the former director and President Fukami for bribery for accepting bribes from Chairman Kadokawa and others.

Second indictment of top founder family Organizational governance of Owner Company questioned Olympics corruption

In the Olympic corruption case, KADOKAWA Chairman Tsuguhiko Kadokawa was indicted on April 4, and the top executive of the bribery side will be tried in court, following the defendant Hironori Aoki, 84, former chairman of AOKI Holdings (HD), a major men's clothing company in Yokohama City. Both defendants are said to have boasted enormous influence on the operation of the company as founders, and the governance (organizational governance) of the owner company is being questioned.

Chairman Kadokawa is the second son of Genyoshi Kadokawa, who founded Kadokawa Shoten, the predecessor of KADOKAWA, in 1945. In '93, his brother Haruki (80) was arrested in a cocaine smuggling case, and he became president. In recent years, he has been chairman without representation, but he has been at the helm of management for nearly 30 years.

Regarding this incident, it is believed that Chairman Kadokawa met with former organizing committee member Haruyuki Takahashi about three times, but the Special Investigation Department draws a picture that a subordinate who received Chairman Kadokawa's wishes asked the former director for accommodations in order to realize a tournament sponsorship contract.

On the other hand, AOKIHD is said to have admitted to the indictment that former chairman Aoki met frequently with former directors and directly requested accommodations such as sponsor selection, and the former chairman admitted to the indictment that he gave a bribe of 28 million yen to the former director. In response to this incident, the company has established a "Governance Verification and Reform Committee."

A senior prosecutor pointed out that "if the founding family has power, it is difficult for dissent within the company to grow, and the bribery side may have been conscious of extending the business, but funding 'deemed public officials' is not allowed from the viewpoint of fairness."