Dentsu fined with 300 million yen in Tokyo’s Olympic offer

Advertising Giant Dentsu Group Inc. received a fine of 300 million yen ($ 1.94 million) after being convicted of violating the antitrust law in relation to the Tokyo Olympic Games and the Paralympic Paralympic Games Paralympic Games.

In the ruling of January 30, the Tokyo District Court also sentenced the former Dentsu Inc. Koji Henmi, 57, two years in prison, suspended for four years.

The fine and prison sentence agreed with the demands of prosecutors.

DENTSU and other companies won separate contracts to plan the test events held in each competition, for a total of 570 million yen.

These companies then received contracts for the implementation of the test events and the operation of the main games, valued in a strong Yen of 43.15 billion yen, through non -competitive negotiated agreements.

During the trial, DENTSU recognized its participation in the rigmation of offers for the initial proof event planning projects. However, he denied any role in the decision of the organizers to grant the remaining projects to the same contractors as the initials.

Prosecutors alleged that the organizers secretly agreed with DENTSU and others to automatically grant the remaining projects.

The trial approach has been in these last projects, which represented 99 percent of the total value of all relevant contracts.

In February 2023, a former organizer, six companies, including DENTSU and six officials of these companies were accused.

The former organizer’s conviction was ended in December 2023.

The Court ruling indicated that the former organizer and the officials had colluded, and that the former organizer provided the bidding documents of other companies to DENTSU to ensure that he won the contract.

The judge said that the motivation for the former organizer was to prevent the offer from failing and ensuring that the desired companies receive the contracts.

Among the six companies, Hakuhodo Inc., the second largest advertising agency in Japan together with DENTSU, and the Event Production Company Cereshpo Co. also received guilt verdicts. Both have appealed decisions.