Five Japanese oil distributors admitted to forming a price cartel for gas oil sold to transport and other companies in Tokyo, at the first hearing of their trial at Tokyo District Court on Thursday. East Japan Usami and Kyoei Sekiyu of Tokyo, Eneos Wing of Nagoya, Enex Fleet of Osaka and Kitaseki of Miyagi Prefecture are suspected of violating the antimonopoly law. No individuals were indicted in the case.
According to the indictment, officials of the five companies agreed to raise the prices of gas oil sold to transport and other companies and curb price reductions between October and December 2024. The prosecution argued in its opening statement that in the oil industry, gatherings called “F-kai” have been held for each region since around November 2012 or before for the exchange of information on average sales prices and negotiations with clients. In the Tokyo metropolitan area, marketing employees from eight companies, including the five, have held monthly meetings called “Chuo-kai” in private rooms at restaurants since October 2019, according to the prosecutors.
Demands for corrective action were made for companies that sold gas oil at prices below the levels agreed to at the meetings, the prosecutors said. After the Fair Trade Commission conducted an on-site inspection in Nagano Prefecture in February last year, the companies involved switched to telephone communications to construct agreements, they said. At Thursday’s hearing, statements by company executives and sales employees made during the court’s examination of evidence were read out.
One of them said that the meetings were necessary for “dealing with clients with strong bargaining power” while another stated that “we had become desensitized (to the malpractice) because it was commonplace in the industry.” The FTC raided a total of eight companies, including the five, in September last year. In response to criminal complaints, the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office’s special investigation team indicted East Japan Usami, Kyoei Sekiyu, Eneos Wing, Enex Fleet and Kitaseki in April this year. Under the leniency program, the prosecutors stopped short of building a case against the three remaining companies, including Tokyo-based Taiyo Koyu, which first voluntarily reported the wrongdoing.
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