The Ministry of International Trade and Industry plans to file a complaint with the Fair Trade Commission over Tokyo Electric Power Co.'s involvement in an upcoming bid to be the power supplier of the ministry's main building, MITI sources said Monday.
The FTC, the nation's antitrust watchdog, has already questioned Tepco officials over the company's allegedly unfair power supply deals with Tokyo Gas Co. and Itochu Corp. -- competitors in the MITI bid who are able to provide some but not all of the electricity they plan to sell and which must obtain additional supplies from TEPCO.
Normally, TEPCO allows clients to choose between two options in buying power from the company -- one package of a nightly discounted rate and a high daytime rate, and the other of a high nightly rate and a discounted daytime rate.
But TEPCO has denied Tokyo Gas and Itochu to choose and allowed the two firms to pick only the former package.
MITI is filing the complaint on the possibility the deals are violations of the Antimonopoly Law.
The MITI building is the first major contract opened to bidding since power sales were deregulated in March.
A group led by Mitsubishi Corp. has also shown interest in participating in the bid.
Critics have charged that deregulation does not mean much since power companies are selling electricity at high prices to new entrants in the power retailing market, effectively killing competition.
MITI requires around 4,500 kw of electricity and plans to sign up with the supplier who offers the lowest bid at Thursday's auction.