Japan's Supreme Court rejected Taisei Corporation's final appeal on September 14, 2026, in a criminal antitrust case tied to construction of new terminal stations for the Linear Chuo Shinkansen, the company disclosed the following day. The decision finalizes a guilty verdict against Taisei carrying a fine of ¥250mn, along with a suspended sentence for a former company adviser who was indicted alongside it.
The case centered on the underground open-cut method used to build new terminal stations at Shinagawa and Nagoya for the Linear line. Taisei and its former adviser had argued since filing their appeal on March 10, 2023, that the indicted conduct did not amount to an Antimonopoly Act violation. The Supreme Court's dismissal ends that argument. Taisei called the outcome "truly regrettable" but said it accepts the ruling, will tighten its compliance framework, and apologized to shareholders and other stakeholders for the trouble caused.
Kajima Corporation confirmed a parallel setback the same week. In a disclosure dated September 15, Kajima said the Supreme Court had also dismissed its own final appeal, in a case tied to construction work ordered by Central Japan Railway Company (JR Tokai) for the Chuo Shinkansen. As with Taisei, Kajima said its arguments were not accepted and called the result regrettable, while pledging to reinforce compliance and bid-rigging prevention across the company.
Kajima's release, though partly garbled in the version reviewed, is legible enough to establish two further points: the company says the financial hit from the case is minor and will not change its current earnings forecast, and its chairman, president and the deputy president overseeing civil engineering will each voluntarily return part of their pay for a period as a result of the now-final criminal case. The exact percentages and duration of that pay reduction were not decipherable in the portion of the filing available for this report.
Both disclosures trace back to construction tied to the Linear Chuo Shinkansen. With Taisei's Supreme Court loss and Kajima's parallel rejection now both final, the criminal phase of the case is closed for both contractors. What remains open is whether the compliance overhauls each company promised this week satisfy the shareholders and business partners they apologized to.