{"id":10710,"date":"2020-10-07T21:36:27","date_gmt":"2020-10-07T21:36:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=10710"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:11:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T04:11:35","slug":"500-com-closes-bribery-investigation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/500-com-closes-bribery-investigation","title":{"rendered":"500.com closes bribery investigation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An independent review found there was no violation of\u00a0the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

China.-\u00a0The Chinese online lottery services provider 500.com has announced it has closed an internal investigation into the company\u2019s involvement in a bribery case related to Japan\u2019s integrated resorts (IR) scheme.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

500.com was interested in participating in one of the bids for the three IR licences Japan\u2019s central government will issue in 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The firm invited\u00a0former senior vice-minister of the cabinet office, Tsukasa Akimoto, and his family on an all-expenses paid ski trip. He was then accused of taking a\u00a0bribe<\/a><\/em><\/strong> of JPY7.6 million (US$72,161) from 500.com.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Japanese lawmaker\u00a0Takaki\u00a0Shirasuka also admitted accepting 1 million yen<\/a><\/em><\/strong> (US$ 9,325) from the lottery services provider.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Chinese company set up a Special Investigation Committee (SIC) to look into its involvement in alleged illegal money transfers.\u00a0The auditors, King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) carried out an independent\u00a0investigation and\u00a0presented findings to the Committee on October 7.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The firm stated in a filing: \u201cBased on the findings and analyses in KWM’s review, the SIC has concluded that it did not find a sufficient basis to establish a violation of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 in connection with the company’s prior activities in Japan.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe SIC has also reviewed the company’s compliance policies, procedures and internal controls in light of the suggestions from KWM.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An independent review found there was no violation of\u00a0the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10712,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Chinese online lottery services provider 500.com has concluded an internal investigation into alleged bribery related to Japan's integrated resorts (IR) scheme. The Special Investigation Committee, advised by King & Wood Mallesons, found insufficient basis to establish a violation of the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act of 1977 concerning the company's prior activities in Japan. This outcome addresses governance concerns surrounding 500.com's pursuit of an IR license.","focusai_entities":"500.com, Tsukasa Akimoto, Takaki Shirasuka, King & Wood Mallesons","focusai_location":"China, Japan, US","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.95), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.8), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (0.95)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"FCPA Investigation Impact","query":"What are the specific implications of the \"insufficient basis to establish a violation\" finding for 500.com's future B2B\/B2C licensing prospects in other regulated jurisdictions, particularly given the prior allegations?"},{"label":"Japan IR Licensing","query":"How might this internal investigation's outcome, despite the FCPA finding, influence the Japanese government's ongoing assessment of IR license applicants and their due diligence processes for corporate integrity?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[161,16338,439],"tags":[1758,227,470],"class_list":["post-10710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","tag-500-com","tag-china","tag-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10710"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10710\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10718,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10710\/revisions\/10718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}