Khanom

Former executives of Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems Inc. admitted on Tuesday, December 27, 2018, to allegations of bribing a Thai public servant over a power plant project at their trial in the case under Japan's first plea bargain deal. Fuyuhiko Nishikida, 63, and Yoshiki Tsuji, 57, admitted to the charges in the indictment during their first hearing at the Tokyo District Court. The court adopted the plea bargain agreement signed by prosecutors and Mitsubishi Hitachi Power on June 28 as evidence, with the deal exempting the company from indictment in exchange for cooperation in investigations and the trial. Conspiring with Satoshi Uchida, 64, who had managed the power plant project then, Nishikida, who was in charge of materials procurement, and Tsuji allegedly paid ฿11 million ($338,000) in February 2015 to the senior official of the Ministry of Transport in Thailand to receive favorable treatment in unloading cargo for the local power plant project, according to the indictment. Thai authorities had told them that the Japanese company failed to meet necessary conditions for cargo discharge. During the hearing, Tokyo prosecutors said Nishikida and Tsuji sought Uchida's advice after the senior official of the ministry's port and harbor bureau requested a bribe. Uchida accepted the request because he thought a delay in the project would incur a loss and cause problems for clients of the Japanese company, according to the prosecutors. The first hearing for Uchida will be held Jan. 11. The company came to know of the matter in March 2015, alerted by a whistleblower, and later reported it to the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors' Office following an internal probe. The Yokohama-based firm entered into a plea bargain agreement in June. The plea bargaining system was just introduced in Japan that month. The indictment was made from the case in July 2018 that Mitsubishi Hitachi Power Systems has struck a plea bargain in a bribery case involving a plant construction project in Thailand for letting the company unload plant equipment.