The encyclopedia · Legal & Compliance · Legal decision · 2022
Dentsu rigged bids for the Tokyo Olympics it helped organise — court fined it ¥300M
Japan's biggest ad agency was both a Tokyo Olympics advisor and a bidder — it coordinated who won which contracts. Seven firms were fined ¥3.3B total.
Dentsu · 2022-02
What happened
Dentsu Group, Japan's largest advertising agency, served as a key advisor to the Tokyo Olympics organising committee while simultaneously bidding on contracts worth hundreds of millions of yen. The company coordinated with six other agencies to predetermine who would win which event-planning contracts, undermining the competitive bidding process entirely.
Japan's Fair Trade Commission raided Dentsu's offices in February 2022, the first exercise of compulsory investigative power in three years. The JFTC found that seven firms had colluded to rig bids for 26 types of test-event planning contracts. Dentsu was hit with a ¥495.56 million administrative surcharge — part of a ¥3.3 billion total across all seven companies.
The Tokyo District Court fined Dentsu ¥300 million in January 2025, matching the prosecutors' demand exactly. A former Dentsu sports executive was sentenced to two years in prison, suspended for four years. Japan's Supreme Court upheld the fine in December 2025.
Why it happened
- Dentsu was both an Olympics organising committee advisor and a contract bidder — a structural conflict of interest.
- The company coordinated bid allocations among competitors, eliminating genuine competition.
- Japan's Antimonopoly Act prohibits unreasonable restraint of trade — bid-rigging is its core target.
- Dentsu's dominance in Japanese advertising gave it the power to orchestrate who won what.
The lesson
If you advise the client on who should bid, you cannot also be a bidder — the conflict is not a technicality, it is the scheme.
Aftermath
The scandal damaged Dentsu's reputation as Japan's dominant advertising force. The JFTC used the case to signal tougher enforcement against bid-rigging, and the Tokyo Olympics committee overhauled its procurement processes.
Sources
- Dentsu fined 300 million yen in Tokyo Olympic bid-rigging — Asahi Shimbun
- Japan Competition Law Update — Axinn / Mondaq (December 2025)
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