This March 28, 2016 file photo shows then Kansai Electric Power Co. executives, from left, Shigeki Iwane, Shosuke Mori and Makoto Yagi attending a press conference in Osaka. (Kyodo)

       OSAKA (Kyodo) -- Prosecutors said Tuesday they have decided not to indict nine former executives of Kansai Electric Power Co. over a bribery scandal and other misconduct due to insufficient evidence.

       The Osaka-based utility has been under fire since it came to light in September 2019 that Eiji Moriyama, a former deputy mayor of Takahama in central Japan's Fukui Prefecture who died in March that year, had bribed Kansai Electric executives and employees to give work to a construction company tied to him.

       The special investigation squad of the Osaka District Public Prosecutors Office had been probing cases involving the nine including former chairmen Makoto Yagi, 72, and Shosuke Mori, 81, as well as a former president, Shigeki Iwane, 68, since it received a criminal complaint from a civic group in October last year.

       A third-party investigation found that over the course of more than three decades beginning in 1987, Moriyama handed out a total of around 360 million yen ($3.2 million) in cash and gifts, including clothing vouchers and sumo tickets to 75 people.

       Moriyama had been instrumental in quelling local opposition to the addition of two reactors to the utility's Takahama nuclear power plant.

       The third-party probe also revealed that Mori and the utility's other former management officials secretly compensated for remuneration cuts of then executives following financial losses posted in the wake of the 2011 massive earthquake and tsunami disaster, after they stepped down from their posts.

       However, the prosecutors decided the nine cannot be held criminally liable over the incidents, saying they could not find evidence indicating the former management had padded orders for the construction company tied to Moriyama.

       A total of 18 former Kansai Electric executives received 259 million yen altogether in alleged compensation for the remuneration cuts, but the prosecutors concluded the money was a reward for contract work they undertook after stepping down from their posts.

       The civic group said it is planning to file a request with the Committee for the Inquest of Prosecution to reopen the investigation.

       Such panels, composed of voters chosen by lottery, are set up to review decisions by prosecutors not to put a suspect on trial if that decision is challenged.

       Kansai Electric has filed a damages suit against six of its former executives, including Yagi, Iwane and Mori, over the scandals.

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