Japanese consultants face charge over bribes to Vietnam officials
Source: 21-JUL-2008 Intellasia | The Japan Times
Jul 21, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM Prosecutors plan to establish a criminal case against several former officials of Pacific Consultants International, a Japanese construction consultancy, on suspicion of bribing a Vietnamese official over a Japanese government-financed road construction project in HCM City, investigative sources said Friday.

Investigators believe the PCI officials' conduct violates the 1993 Unfair Competition Prevention Law, which bans bribing a foreign public official and carries a punishment of up to five years in prison or a fine of up to Japanese yen 5 million, or both.

If the criminal case is established, 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 government.

In March last year, two officials of Kyudenko Co., an electrical and engineering firm affiliated with Kyushu Electric Power Co., were charged and one was fined Japanese yen 500,000 and the other Japanese yen 200,000 for bribing 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 HCM City, which undertook the project with Japan's official development assistance loans.

PCI, headquartered in the Tokyo suburb of Tama, won orders for design and work supervision of the road construction for about Japanese yen 1.1 billion in fiscal 2001, which ended in March 2002, and for about Japanese yen 2 billion in fiscal 2003.

PCI is suspected of giving a HCM City official more than US$200,000 in summer 2006 as a reward for winning orders, the investigative sources said. The consultancy is also suspected to providing money to the Vietnamese side in 2003, they said.