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Several ex-PCI officials to be prosecuted over bribery in Vietnam+
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) TOKYO, July 18_(Kyodo) _ Prosecutors plan to establish a criminal case against several former officials of Pacific Consultants International, a Japanese construction consultancy, on suspicion of sending bribes to a Vietnamese official over a Japanese government-financed road construction project in Ho Chi Minh City, investigative sources said Friday.
Investigators believe the PCI officials' conduct violates the 1993 unfair competition prevention law that bans anyone from bribing a foreign public official with punishment of up to five years in prison, or a fine of up to 5 million yen, or both for offenders.
The Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office is expected to put more investigators on its investigation team on the matter next week at the earliest, the sources said.
If the case is established as planned, it would be the second involving bribery of foreign public officials and the first involving overseas projects financed with low-interest loans provided by the Japanese government.
In March last year, two officials of Kyudenko Co., an electrical and engineering firm affiliated with Kyushu Electric Power Co., were indicted and fined 500,000 yen and 200,000 yen, respectively, for sending bribes to two Philippine government officials in a bid to promote Kyudenko's fingerprint identification system in the Philippines.
The project in Vietnam involves the construction of an east-west highway in Ho Chi Minh City. The city government undertook the project with Japan's official development assistance loans.
PCI, which is headquartered in the city of Tama in the western suburbs of Tokyo, won orders for design and work supervision of the road construction for about 1.1 billion yen (about $10.4 million) in fiscal 2001 that ended in March 2002 and for about 2 billion yen in fiscal 2003.
PCI is suspected of giving a Ho Chi Minh City government official more than $200,000 in the summer of 2006 as a reward for winning orders, the investigative sources said. The Japanese consultancy is also suspected to have provided money to the Vietnamese side in 2003, they said.
The prosecutors' office has already questioned several former PCI officials and sent investigators to Vietnam as part of efforts to establish a criminal case.
In June, the prosecutors filed criminal charges against PCI and its former president, Shota Morita, 66, for allegedly evading 60 million yen in corporate income taxes during two years through September 2004, in order to raise funds to send bribes to foreign public officials.
PCI is known as one of the largest consultancies in terms of order receipts of the Japanese government's ODA projects abroad, such as the construction of airports and railroads.
Established in 1969, PCI has a network of overseas offices in Jakarta, Manila, Bangkok, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, New Delhi, Islamabad, Colombo and Doha.
With a workforce of about 250, PCI posted 13.3 billion yen in sales in its business year ended in September 2007.
Copyright ? 2008 Kyodo News International, Inc.
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