Bid-Rigging Suspected for Rail Maintenance, Repair Tenders; Tokyo’s Transport Bureau, 6 Construction Firms Investigated

The Yomiuri Shimbun

21:00 JST, November 11, 2025

The Japan Fair Trade Commission conducted on-site inspections Tuesday of six construction companies on suspicion of repeatedly rigging bids for rail maintenance and repair tenders ordered by the Tokyo metropolitan government’s Bureau of Transportation.

The firms’ actions are suspected of constituting a violation of the Antimonopoly Law.

The commission also entered the Tokyo metropolitan government building to conduct an inspection, as there is suspicion that the bureau was also involved in committing the alleged violations.

Three of the six companies are based in Tokyo: Totetsu Kogyo Co., which is listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange’s Prime Market, Tsuboi Corp. and Hayakawa Kensetsu. Of the remaining three, Tokyu Kidoh Kogyo Co. and Nisshin Kogyo are based in Kanagawa Prefecture, and Sankikensetsu Inc. is based in Fukuoka Prefecture.

For at least the past several years, the six companies have coordinated which contractors would win bids for rail maintenance work on the Toei Subway lines and other lines operated and managed by the bureau, according to the sources.

It is also suspected that an official of the bureau was involved in the bid-rigging to ensure the tenders would not fail, they said.

The bureau conducts annual tenders for maintenance work to address rail degradation on lines including the Oedo Line, Shinjuku Line, Mita Line and Asakusa Line, as well as the Tokyo Sakura Tram line and the Nippori-Toneri Liner.

The scale of construction work for a single line ranges from tens of millions of yen to more than ¥100 million.

The bids are structured as a selective, competitive bidding process. However, the same contractors have essentially monopolized the contracts for the same routes.

Totetsu Kogyo and Sankikensetsu have primarily and repeatedly won contracts for the Oedo Line, Tokyu Kidoh Kogyo for the Mita Line, Tsuboi for the Asakusa Line, Nisshin Kogyo for the Shinjuku Line, Hayakawa Kensetsu for the Tokyo Sakura Tram and Nisshin Kogyo for the Nippori-Toneri Liner.

The committee plans to continue its investigation, believing the six firms coordinated on the bureau’s maintenance projects to ensure stable profit margins.

Tetsudo Kogyo was among the companies that said they would cooperate with the inspection.

“An inspection has indeed taken place, and we will cooperate,” said an official of the transport bureau, who declined to comment on the bid-rigging allegations on the grounds that the inspection is ongoing.