Kansai Electric Power Co. President Takashi Morimoto apologized to shareholders in Osaka on Thursday for a scandal in which the former deputy mayor of a town hosting one of its nuclear plants was found to have bribed company executives.

"I am sincerely sorry and extend a deep apology to you for causing great trouble and worries," Morimoto said at the outset of the first shareholders' meeting since the scandal emerged last September.

The Osaka-based company has been under fire since it came to light that Eiji Moriyama, a former deputy mayor of Takahama in Fukui Prefecture, had bribed executives and employees to give work to a construction company tied to him.

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 ($3.4 million) in cash and gifts, including clothing vouchers and sumo tickets to 75 people.

At the annual meeting attended by 328 shareholders, Kansai Electric obtained approval for the appointments of Sadayuki Sakakibara, former head of the country's most powerful business lobby the Japan Business Federation, as its chairman and 12 other board members.

The chairman post had remained vacant since last October when Makoto Yagi stepped down to take responsibility for the scandal.

The meeting also approved a measure to strengthen corporate governance and enhance transparency by allowing outside directors a greater say.

"Kansai Electric tried to conceal inconvenient matters," said a shareholder during the meeting. "The company cannot gain public trust without making information disclosure a pillar of its management."

Earlier this month, Kansai Electric filed a 1.94 billion yen damages suit against five of its former executives over the bribery scandal. Lawyer Hiroyuki Kawai, who attended the meeting on behalf of the Osaka city government, the largest shareholder with a 7.64 percent stake in the company, said the municipality could join the lawsuit.

Moriyama, who died in March 2019, held strong sway in the local community and had been instrumental in quelling opposition to the addition of two new reactors to the Takahama nuclear power plant.

The shareholders' meeting, which lasted about three hours, was broadcast online to prevent coronavirus infections.

==Kyodo

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