Shareholders arrived in Tokyo on March 30, 2017 to attend a shareholder meeting for Japanese advertising agency Dentsu. JIJI PRESS TOKYO - Tokyo prosecutors raided the headquarters of ad agency Dentsu Inc and an events company on Friday, part of a widening scandal into corruption during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The new probe follows a sponsorship bribery scandal that saw Dentsu Inc offices raided earlier this year.
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The shares in Dentsu Group Inc, the parent company of Dentsu Inc, fell 2.7 percent on the news of the new investigation, while shares in Cerespo Co Ltd, which media also said was raided, fell 11 percent.
The Japan Fair Trade Commission and the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office didn't want to comment on the reports of suspected bid-rigging.
Dentsu said in a statement that they continue to cooperate fully with this investigation.
Advertising agency ADK Holdings informed the Fair Trade Commission that it was involved in collusion on bid-rigging, according to the Kyodo news agency. A representative for ADK didn't want to say anything.
In the earlier bribery scandal, Haruyuki Takahashi, a former member of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics board and before that a Dentsu Inc executive, was arrested in August on suspicion of receiving bribes from Olympic sponsors.
Executives from ADK, suits retailer Aoki Holdings and publishing firm Kadokawa have been arrested in connection with the bribery scandal.
Dentsu Inc is part of the domestic arm of the advertising giant Dentsu Group Inc. The group, valued at some $9 billion, has an extensive international business.