Tokyo Barrister: Start the law firm bankruptcy

Chapter 665: Bidding Collusion (Part )
"You can do anything unless it's prohibited by law." Hamano replied firmly, "Don't you companies always say you want freedom? Is there any law that prohibits two companies whose presidents are husband and wife from bidding? There is absolutely no problem from a procedural point of view. As long as the accounting systems of the two companies are sound and their finances are independent of each other, what's wrong with being husband and wife?"

"We select the most talented people regardless of personal connections. As long as they can provide quality projects for the city hall and the citizens, so what!" said Hamano.

"I think you're saying this to the wrong person." Kitahara took a step forward. "For citizens, it's true that 'you can do anything unless it's prohibited by law', but as for your city hall, 'it's prohibited unless it's authorized by law'! Companies with a husband-and-wife relationship can bid, but the question is, has your city hall carried out a review to see if there is any concerted action or collusion in bidding?!"

In an instant, Kitahara immediately exposed Hamano's logic.

"Our city hall strictly abides by the legal provisions and procedural requirements in each bidding project and fulfills its verification obligations!" Hamano continued to reply. At this point, he was a little overwhelmed.

The young male lawyer continued to walk forward.

Every step closer puts the opponent under tremendous pressure.

"In that case, then produce evidence that your city hall fulfilled its duty to verify!" Kitahara suddenly raised his voice, "If you can't, then please explain to the Tokyo Metropolitan Finance Department why you didn't verify such an obvious conflict of interest and why you neglected your duties! Did you accept any benefits?!"

Hamano was startled by the sudden burst of powerful aura from Kitahara.

Especially the sentence asking him to produce evidence.

This is what he said before, and he pulled it back to his face.

"If you need evidence." Kitahara turned to look at Iwasa, the judge of the case, "We can retrieve the bank records of the two presidents. Let's see what the bank transfers between the two presidents look like after the profits of the two companies are distributed to their respective shareholders!"

Hamano was forced to this point and couldn't help but feel nervous.

He seemed to hear the beating of his own heart.

As a very experienced lawyer, he had not felt such tension for a long time.

The young man in front of me actually has such ability.

Even Hamano had to use all his strength now.

Hamano knew that any excuses he made now would be futile. Instead, the other party would only seize the opportunity and launch a more fierce counterattack.

After further thinking, Hamano had a solution. That was to simply "supplement" the materials afterwards. Yes, let the two companies submit a "statement" before participating in the bidding. As long as the "statement" disclosed that the two were in a husband-and-wife relationship, there would be no problem.

Any material can be supplemented.

As long as it can be proved that the city hall has fulfilled its relevant obligations and has not violated any regulations, it will be fine.

We have as much material of this form as you need.

Submit whatever documents are needed.

City Hall is always invincible.

Thinking of this, Hamano calmed down immediately. He said, "Regarding whether the City Hall has fulfilled its verification obligations, we will provide additional materials after today."

As soon as this was said, the city hall officials present understood what he meant. This is what it means to supplement it later. If you can supplement a set of materials that do not appear to have procedural problems, then no matter how loud your lawyer shouts, it will be useless.

Miyagawa, who was sitting in his seat, also heard the hidden meaning of Hamano's words.

Obviously, for the City Hall, any material can be made up.

For Kitahara, it was really unfair. No matter how hard they tried to tear open the opponent's defense, they could always fill it up right away.

This is the power of those in power.

Hamano bet that Kitahara only controlled this one project at most. The presidents of the two companies were husband and wife, which did provide superficial evidence of suspicion of bid rigging. However, this situation is rare after all. Among the bidding projects of the High-tech Industrial Park, at most this project has such a problem.

You were lucky to catch this mistake this time.

Such luck will never happen again.

Bid rigging is so difficult to prove.

Hamano believed that Kitahara would never be able to provide evidence of bid rigging in other projects.

"Next, I will talk about the second project where bid rigging existed." Kitahara said as he stood in front of the conference table. At this time, he paused slightly as if to whet people's appetite. It was during this pause that many city hall officials became nervous again.

"The bidding for the intelligent electric control system of the talent apartment in the high-tech park project." Kitahara's voice continued, "Companies participating in this project must pay a bid deposit of 5 million yen in advance to avoid the subsequent default of companies withdrawing or abandoning their bids. In the final round of bid evaluation, a total of five companies were shortlisted, and finally one won the bid."

Kitahara narrated the story calmly.

The listeners did not immediately realize that there was any collusion in the bidding.

6◇9◇Book◇Bar

"Excuse me, where is the collusion in bidding!!" Hamano shouted, "I have read the information of this project. All procedures and documents are complete. The verification obligations that should be fulfilled have also been verified. The personnel of these companies are also independent of each other and have no relationship with each other. There is no so-called relationship of concerted action between the presidents. Where is the evidence of collusion in such a clean project!"

Kitahara slowly took out four sheets of A4 paper.

A leisurely look.

This posture seems not to be in the intense trial of a case, but like a teacher in the classroom, taking out handouts before giving a lecture to a stupid student.

He slowly showed the paper, page by page, to everyone in the conference room.

Make sure everyone can see the details of these materials.

These four A4 papers are the bank's transfer vouchers.

It has the Mizuho Bank logo on it.

For a moment, everyone was confused, not knowing what the young male lawyer was trying to say. What could these bank transfers express, and how could they reflect bid rigging?

The next second, the male lawyer said;

"It's strange, it's strange. It's clear that four independent companies did not win the bid in the final round. So, the deposits made when bidding should be returned to their respective accounts. Why, the materials I obtained here show that the deposits of these four unsuccessful companies were all returned to the same bank account."

"They are obviously four different companies, so why did they use the same account to collect the refunded deposit? Can you explain this to me?"

Kitahara asked a deliberately mischievous question.

The moment this question was asked—

The entire conference room was silent.

(End of this chapter)