Photo/Illutration Shinichi Ueno, center, a former president of advertising agency ADK Holdings Inc., appears in the Tokyo District Court on July 12. (Pool)

A former president of a major advertising agency was found guilty on July 12 of bribing a Tokyo Olympic official to allow his firm to handle corporate sponsorship contracts. 

The Tokyo District Court sentenced Shinichi Ueno, who headed ADK Holdings Inc., to two years in prison, suspended for four years. The prosecutors had demanded a sentence of two years in prison without suspension.

In handing down the verdict, Presiding Judge Masahiro Tomoshige said the defendant “played a leading role as a top executive” in the case.

According to the ruling, Ueno colluded in the bribery scheme with two subordinates at ADK--a former managing director and former manager of the company’s Olympic project team.

Between 2014 and 2018, Ueno asked Haruyuki Takahashi, then an executive of the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee, to help ADK be selected as one of the sporting event’s “sales cooperation agencies.”

That designation allowed ADK to secure a deal to solicit sponsorships for the Games. 

Ueno then paid a total of 14.85 million yen ($107,000) to a consulting company called Commons, which was run by Takahashi, from 2019 to 2022, according to the court. 

Ueno’s two subordinates have already been sentenced to suspended prison terms and Takahashi is awaiting trial on charges of bribery. 

This is the 10th ruling from five separate cases connected to the Olympic bribery scandal, which has seen 15 people indicted. All 10 rulings have found the defendants guilty.

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