As you can see in the illustration below, in the competitive bidding process for electric equipment that the city office orders, ten participating bidders jointly decided on the successful bidder for each bid over many years in order to maintain the successful bid price high. If the successful bidders were chosen through free competition, the successful bid price should have been lower. This was a waste of tax money.
This act caused a substantial restraint of competition in the area of electric equipment works ordered by the city office.

As a result of the investigation by the Fair Trade Commission, the act of the bidders was found to come under bid-rigging (unreasonable restraint of trade). Accordingly, a cease and desist order and surcharge payment orders were issued against the bidders.
Regarding this incident, certain employees of the city office were involved in the bid-rigging. As it was so-called "bid-rigging led by government", a request for remedial action was issued againt the city office.