Olympic Bribery Scandal

bribe = (verb/noun) = to (secretly) pay money so they change their actions

bribery (noun) “bry-ber-ree” = crime name

Who is Haruyuki Takahashi?

What do you know about his scandal?

Tokyo Games organizing committee executive.

For each company can you explain:

1) What does the company do?

2) Why did they bribe Takahashi?

Aoki Holdings

3 senior executives have admitted to paying 28 million yen in bribes

3 excecutives have been arrested and accused of paying 69 million yen in bribes

Takahashi’s golfing buddy’s company received a suspicious 8 million yen payment from Sun Arrow Inc.

Can you explain this bid rigging scandal?

bid for a contract = try to win the contract (by offering a price and plan)

bid rigging = companies work together to decide which company will win a contract. The others will bid a higher price

From the newspaper:

Rigging is suspected in the 26 open bids held in 2018 for the rights to arrange test events
The test events were for checking potential problems with operations, security and guiding audiences were carried out between 2018 and 2021.
Dentsu won bids for five events for about ¥80 million, while Cerespo won another five for about ¥116 million

ADK is the only company to confess to bid rigging so far. Why do you think they confessed?

confess: (verb) = 1) say you committed a crime
2) say your embarrassing truth/secret

Has this scandal changed your opinion on any of these companies?

People are worried that this public scandal will hurt Japan’s chances of winning the Winter Olympics in 2030.

Do you think the bid will be affected?

Do you want Sapporo to host the winter olympics?

Do you think Sapporo residents want to host the winter olympics?

The Hokkaido Shimbun reported that 67% of people don’t want to host it. They care more about coronavirus and snow removal.

In December 2010 Russia and Qatar won their bids to host the 2018 and 2022 world cups.

Why did Qatar and Russia want to be hosts?

Do their victories seem suspicious to you? Why?

16 of 22 voting members in that hall have been implicated in or investigated over some form of alleged corruption or bad practice.

sources:

https://www.campaignasia.com/article/behind-the-tokyo-olympics-bribery-scandal-involving-dentsu-hakuhodo-and-adk/482577
https://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/14777268
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/oct/08/football-corruption-and-the-remarkable-road-to-qatar-world-cup