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OO RUEHFK RUEHKSO RUEHNAG RUEHNH
DE RUEHOK #0588/01 2891040
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O 161040Z OCT 06
FM AMCONSUL OSAKA KOBE
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0563
INFO RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO IMMEDIATE 7744
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 OSAKA KOBE 000588 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR E, EB, EAP/J 
STATE PASS USTR FOR AUSTR CUTLER AND MBEEMAN 
STATE PASS FEDERAL TRADE COMMISSION FOR GENERAL 
COUNSEL BLUMENTHAL 
FTC ALSO FOR INTL ANTITRUST - TRITELL/SHANAHAN 
JUSTICE FOR STU CHEMTOB IN ANTI-TRUST DIVISION 
STATE PASS TO NSC FOR TONG 
USDOC FOR ITA/OFFICE OF JAPAN MELCHER 
NFATC FOR LISA FOX AND BARRY BLENNER 
PARIS FOR USOECD 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: ETRD ECON EINV ELAB JA
SUBJECT: BID RIGGING IN JAPAN: A FEATURE, NOT A BUG 
 
 
¶1. (SBU) Bid rigging (dango in Japanese) is a common 
form of corruption in Japan, in which firms restrict 
open competition by coordinating their bids on 
procurement or public contracts.  Although not unique 
to the Kansai area surrounding Osaka in western Japan, 
recently one example of bid rigging came to light in 
Osaka's southern neighbor of Wakayama that shines light 
on the practice as a whole. 
 
---------- 
BACKGROUND 
---------- 
 
¶2. (SBU) On October 13, the Osaka District Public 
Prosecutor's Office arrested Wakayama Prefecture 
Treasurer Satoaki Mizutani and 4 others in conjunction 
with its expanding probe of alleged bid rigging in four 
public works projects ordered by the Wakayama 
Prefectural Government in 2004.  The investigation also 
targets current and former executives of the Obayashi 
Corporation, a major Osaka-based construction company. 
An Osakan golf course owner close to Governor Yoshiki 
Kimura is suspected of taking 60 million yen (over USD 
500,000) from the successful bidders for advance 
details of the projects.  Although Obayashi did not 
participate in the bidding, Osaka authorities suspect 
that the conglomerate was exerting control over the 
amount offered by bidders. 
 
------------------------- 
BID RIGGING: A CASE STUDY 
------------------------- 
 
¶3. (SBU) More interesting than the particulars of the 
unfolding criminal case is the glimpse the case offers 
into the rationale for the deeply ingrained system of 
rigging bids in Japan -- a practice that shows no signs 
of abating any time soon. 
 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
OBAYASHI: GODFATHER OF BID RIGGING IN THE KANSAI 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
¶4. (SBU) Osaka media interlocutors tell us that former 
Obayashi Managing Director Sakae Hirajima personally 
selected bid winners and controlled bid prices for 
thirty years starting in the 1960s.  Known as the 
Godfather of construction companies in the Kansai, 
prospective bidders reportedly had to supplicate 
themselves to him in order to clinch deals on all 
public projects.  Hirajima left Obayashi after a large 
corruption scandal and disclosed details of his firm's 
bid rigging practices to the Japan Fair Trade 
Commission (JFTC) in 1997. 
 
¶5. (SBU) Predictably, although the JFTC subsequently 
clamped down, a less direct system for rigging bids 
soon filled the vacuum left by Hirajima's departure. 
In the current system, a number of major construction 
companies, many of which are based in Osaka, take turns 
at dictating bid conditions.  In Obayashi, reportedly 
there is now a team of executives in charge of bid 
rigging divided to two groups: one for road and tunnel 
projects, the other specializing in buildings. 
 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
FROM BID RIGGING TO "BID DUMPING" IN PUBLIC WORKS 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
OSAKA KOBE 00000588  002 OF 003 
 
 
 
¶6. (SBU) While detected bid rigging cases have declined 
since 1997, so has the Japanese economy as a whole. 
But Toshikazu Ito (please protect), a Technical 
Coordinator of the Kinki Regional Development Bureau, 
Ministry of Land and Infrastructure (MLIT) reported to 
econoff that what MLIT saw through December 2005 was a 
shift from artificially high bids to bids up to three 
percent less than the official estimated cost Q- a 
trend in which firms are under-bidding to win 
contracts. 
 
¶7. (SBU) Furthermore, this "bid dumping" became much 
more pronounced in the Kansai starting this year, with 
bids as low as 60 Q 70 percent of the government's 
designated maximum price.  The MLIT official felt that 
in his opinion, firms cannot maintain adequate safety 
levels at those prices.  According to Ito, MLIT is 
increasing its safety screening as a result. 
 
¶8. (SBU) Major construction companies can offer such 
low prices because they have the economic clout to 
offer their subcontractorsless money for their portion 
of the overall contract without reducing the amount of 
work the subcontractors have to do -- and while they 
maintain adequate profit levels, the small-scale 
construction companies downstream must cope with a 
profit squeeze.  Subcontractors are faced with making 
hard choices about safety and their own economic 
viability, according to Ito.  However, MLIT's analysis 
omits the value of increased competition in lowering 
the cost of competitive bids and improving the terms 
offered by firms, something the USG has tried to 
impress upon economic bureaucrats in Japan. 
 
------------------------------------- 
CAN BID RIGGING BE REFORMED IN JAPAN? 
------------------------------------- 
 
¶9. (SBU) Ito said that although it is not an optimal 
situation, there are still too many small construction 
firms that will go bankrupt without the handout of a 
subcontracting job from a conglomerate like Obayashi. 
Since the Japanese labor market has low liquidity, the 
GOJ is reluctant to push a large segment of low-skilled 
laborers into the unemployment rolls, hampering the 
GOJ's ability to end the system of bid rigging and bid 
dumping. 
 
¶10. (SBU) As in other industries, for the Japanese 
government underemployment is preferable to 
unemployment.  However, given the storm in the Diet 
last November over subcontracting architect Hidetsugu 
Aneha's falsification of mandatory structural strength 
analyses for hotels and condominiums (essentially 
caused by the same dynamic of bid dumping by a general 
contractor), it is surprising that the GOJ has not 
recognized that putting the public's safety at risk is 
potentially much more costly in human lives and in yen 
than increasing its unemployment figures. 
 
¶11. (SBU) Manabu Nojima (please protect), a manager at 
the Kansai Economic Federation only half-jokingly 
opined that the Japanese economy is based less on 
capitalism than market socialism.  Many in the business 
community in Osaka, especially large construction 
companies, do not think that bid rigging is bad 
behavior.  Instead, they argue that due to its 
 
OSAKA KOBE 00000588  003 OF 003 
 
 
employment of tottering family operations and 
underemployable elements of the labor force, bid 
rigging serves as a form of social security in Japan. 
Small construction companies serve to sponge up excess 
unemployment during economic downturns, and release it 
during periods of expansion.  He added that it would be 
difficult to change irregularities over bidding without 
changing these attitudes first. 
 
RUSSEL