{"id":31701,"date":"2022-07-13T03:52:32","date_gmt":"2022-07-13T06:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/?p=31701"},"modified":"2026-04-23T06:55:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T09:55:23","slug":"lawsuit-could-jeopardise-osaka-ir-plans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/lawsuit-could-jeopardise-osaka-ir-plans","title":{"rendered":"Lawsuit could jeopardise Osaka IR plans"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>An anti-IR group claims the City&#8217;s Audit Committee refused to review the land lease deal for an integrated resort at Yumeshima.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Japan.- A lawyer is planning to file a lawsuit after the city of Osaka&#8217;s Audit Committee reportedly refused to review land lease agreements for the development of an integrated resort at Yumeshima. People opposed to the casino plans claim the arrangement violated\u00a0<strong>Japan&#8217;s Local Government Finance Act<\/strong>, which aims to curb excessive public spending.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to the Japanese media outlet Asahi Shimbun, five people described as former members of the Osaka city council claim that the city&#8217;s payment of JPY79bn (US$576m) for soil improvement works at the site for the proposed integrated resort was illegal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>However, the City Audit Committee voted by a majority\u00a0<strong>not to support an audit\u00a0<\/strong>of the validity of the land lease agreement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last September,\u00a0<strong>MGM Resorts International <\/strong>and <strong>ORIX (MGM-Orix)\u00a0<\/strong>were selected as Osaka&#8217;s\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/osaka-announces-mgm-orix-as-ir-partner\" target=\"_blank\">IR partner<\/a>\u00a0by the Osaka Prefecture. The consortium proposed to invest\u00a0<strong>JPY1tn (US$9.1bn)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The period for&nbsp;<a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/japan-only-2-locations-submit-ir-proposals\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">IR applications in Japan<\/a>&nbsp;closed in April with only Osaka and Nagasaki submitting bids. MGM expects to have news on its integrated resort application in Japan as soon as September.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/osaka-citizens-continue-to-push-for-ir-referendum\" target=\"_blank\">An anti-IR group<\/a>\u00a0claims it has reached the signatures of at least 2 per cent of voters needed to hold a referendum on the matter. The Osaka Prefectural Election Administration Commission verified at least 146,472 of the 208,552 signatures submitted on June 6. As such, a draft ordinance will be presented in the prefectural assembly with the government\u2019s opinion on the matter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An anti-IR group claims the City&#8217;s Audit Committee refused to review the land lease deal for an integrated resort at Yumeshima.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":10582,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"is_press_release":false,"is_interview":false,"is_opinion":false,"focusai_summary":"An anti-IR group and former Osaka city council members are challenging the land lease and JPY79bn soil improvement costs for the Yumeshima integrated resort, alleging violations of Japan\u2019s Local Government Finance Act. The Osaka City Audit Committee, however, refused to review the agreement, while a potential referendum looms as an anti-IR group secured sufficient signatures.","focusai_entities":"Osaka City Audit Committee, MGM Resorts International, ORIX, Osaka Prefecture, Osaka Prefectural Election Administration Commission, Asahi Shimbun","focusai_location":"Japan, Osaka, Yumeshima, Nagasaki","focusai_target_profile":"ceo_executive (0.9), regulator (0.9), compliance_legal (0.9), operator_casino (0.95), investor_analyst (0.9), supplier_vendor (0.75), journalist_researcher (0.85)","focusai_suggestions":[{"label":"Legal Basis of Challenge?","query":"What are the specific legal arguments underpinning the claim that the Osaka IR land lease and soil improvement payments violate Japan\u2019s Local Government Finance Act?"},{"label":"Referendum Impact Analysis?","query":"How would a successful referendum challenging the Osaka IR project impact the consortium's investment timeline, capital allocation, and overall project viability?"}],"footnotes":""},"categories":[16338,439],"tags":[14017],"class_list":["post-31701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-east-asia-news","category-legal-news","tag-integrated-resort"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31701","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\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31701"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31731,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31701\/revisions\/31731"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10582"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/focusgn.com\/asia-pacific\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}