Ex-Japan Highway exec avoids bars for rigged bids 

A former vice president of Japan Highway Public Corp. was let off the hook with a suspended 30-month prison term Friday for his involvement in rigging bids for highway bridge projects undertaken by the now-defunct government toll road operator.

Michio Uchida, 63, was sentenced by the Tokyo High Court on charges of antimonopoly law and trust breaches.

Presiding Judge Takao Nakayama criticized the collusive relations between JH executives and bridge manufacturers, determining that the makers had offered positions to JH retirees in return for having the executives arrange bridge construction bids.

Uchida was accused of conspiring with former JH board director Tsuneo Kaneko, 60, to instruct their subordinates to divide orders among bridge builders for an elevated highway bridge project in Shizuoka Prefecture in May 2004, inflating costs to the public firm by ¥47 million.

In collusion with a 73-year-old former JH board member who later landed a job at Yokogawa Bridge as an adviser, Uchida also rigged bids for public works ordered by JH in the two fiscal years from 2003, according to the court.

Uchida's lawyers had submitted a not-guilty plea, claiming prosecutors' investigations were based on mere speculation that the defendant had authorized the bid-rigging.

Seeking a 30-month prison term, the prosecutors had told the court, "The defendant played an essential role and tried to secure postretirement positions (in the private sector) for himself and his colleagues, and there is no room for clemency."

In its ruling in December, the court sentenced Kaneko to two years in prison, suspended for three years, although he also insisted on his innocence. Kaneko has appealed the sentence.

In addition to Uchida and Kaneko, 10 employees of bridge makers and 26 corporations have been convicted of involvement in the bid-rigging.