{"id":15293,"date":"2021-02-26T16:09:26","date_gmt":"2021-02-26T16:09:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=15293"},"modified":"2026-04-23T21:29:32","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T00:29:32","slug":"japan-date-set-for-trial-of-politician-over-500-com-bribe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/japan-date-set-for-trial-of-politician-over-500-com-bribe","title":{"rendered":"Japan: date set for trial of politician over 500.com bribe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Tsukasa Akimoto, who says he is innocent, will be tried next month. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Japan.- A date of <strong>March 29<\/strong> has been set for the <strong>trial of Japanese politician, Tsukasa Akimoto<\/strong>, who is accused of attempting to bribe two people involved with the Chinese online gaming company <strong><em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/500-com-revenue-up-69-4-on-previous-quarter\" target=\"_blank\">500.com<\/a><\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Akimoto allegedly bribed a witness and former 500.com advisor with JPY20m in cash,<\/strong> asking them to lie under oath in recent<strong> <em><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/tokyo-court-2-former-500-com-officials\" target=\"_blank\">trials<\/a><\/em><\/strong> over allegations that 500.com had previously bribed Akimoto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Officials at 500.com were taken to court on accusations of paying Akimoto to gain an advantage in Japan\u2019s IR tender. The <strong>two officials were sentenced to prison by the Tokyo District court.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Akimoto\u2019s legal team was said to be working on narrowing down the issues and evidence<\/strong> in the case prior to the announcement that the trial would take place late next month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The politician has <strong>protested his innocence<\/strong> since the accusations were made. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Tsukasa Akimoto, who says he is innocent, will be tried next month.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15306,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"Japanese politician Tsukasa Akimoto faces trial on March 29 for alleged witness tampering, accused of bribing a former 500.com advisor to lie under oath. This stems from a prior case where 500.com officials were convicted of bribing Akimoto to gain an advantage in Japan's Integrated Resort (IR) tender process. The ongoing legal proceedings highlight significant governance and regulatory compliance challenges within the nascent Japanese IR market.","focusai_entities":"Tsukasa Akimoto, 500.com, Tokyo District Court","focusai_location":"Japan, Tokyo","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (1.0), compliance_legal (1.0), operator_casino (0.9), payments_fraud_aml (0.7), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.7), journalist_researcher (1.0)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"IR Tender Integrity","query":"What are the potential long-term implications of the Akimoto trial for the integrity and transparency of Japan's future Integrated Resort (IR) tender processes and the confidence of international operators?"},{"label":"Regulatory Framework Impact","query":"How might the outcomes of this trial influence the evolution of Japan's regulatory compliance and governance frameworks for both land-based casinos and potential online gaming verticals?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,439,158],"tags":[1758,229,512,4138],"class_list":["post-15293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","category-slider-home","tag-500-com","tag-gambling","tag-gaming","tag-online-gambling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15293","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=15293"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15305,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15293\/revisions\/15305"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}