Japan Press Weekly

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2007 February 28 - March 6 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

Executives of 5 general contractors arrested over bid-riggings

The Nagoya District Public Prosecutors Office on February 28 arrested five officials of major general contractors, including Obayashi Corp., Kajima Corp., and Shimizu Corp, over bid-rigging on projects to extend a subway line in Nagoya.

This is the first case that construction companies are being prosecuted under the antimonopoly law, indicating how serious this bid-rigging case is.

The suspects allegedly decided on successful bidders and prices in December 2005. These major general contractors in the same month publicly declared that they will no longer engage in bid-riggings. The Nagoya subway construction case revealed that this declaration was merely a tactic used to cover up the misconduct.

In order to prevent illegal acts from being detected, these corporations had set the price at which a bid was won at 95 percent or less of the estimated cost for the contract.