”「責任は吉村知事にある」大阪・関西万博“建設費未払い問題”で下請け業者らが救済を訴え,” 4 November 2025

"Unofficial Japanese-to-English translation by Business & Human Rights Resource Centre"

On 4 November, a press conference was held in Tokyo by representatives of construction companies claiming to be victims, together with journalists, regarding the issue of unpaid construction costs for overseas pavilions at the Osaka Kansai Expo.

Unpaid construction costs due to top-tier subcontractors “running off with the money” or “going bankrupt”
Unpaid construction costs have occurred for the pavilions of 11 countries (Angola, India, Uzbekistan, Serbia, Thailand, China, Germany, the United States, Poland, Malta, and Romania).
A total of 38 construction companies have reported non-payment, and the damage is said to exceed 1 billion yen.

According to journalist Fumikazu Nishitani, who has been covering and investigating the issue, the unpaid cases can largely be divided into two patterns: cases in which companies that were engaged as secondary or lower-tier subcontractors absconded with the construction fees, and cases in which companies in the same tier went bankrupt...

In either case, those who actually suffered the non-payment damage were small and medium sized enterprises working as lower-tier subcontractors, such as third-tier or fourth-tier subcontractors.
SEIKEN Co., Ltd. … had been involved in the construction of the U.S. pavilion but reportedly suffered non-payment damage from ES Global Japan Co., Ltd., which had been the primary contractor.
ES Global is said to have responded that it had “already completed payment to the secondary subcontractor Neo Space.” [Neo Space Co., Ltd., the construction company serving as the secondary subcontractor, filed for bankruptcy in May and went out of business.]

In addition, Chihiro Takaseki of Office J0K Co., Ltd. has reported non-payment by GL Events Japan K.K. ...

According to Nishitani, one example of GL Events refusing payment involved the construction of the Romania pavilion. After paying 200 million yen out of the total 400 million yen, they refused to pay the remaining amount, citing reasons such as “the wall colour is different” and “the table shape is bad.”

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Kishida (Advisor at SEIKEN Co., Ltd.) stated, “Since the Expo is a national project, this is not just a ‘problem between private parties’.”
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“I believe the responsibility lies with Governor Yoshimura. He said, ‘We will absolutely make this a success.’ If that is the case, then he should distribute funds to those who are troubled due to the unpaid issue. I want him to make up his mind and take appropriate action,” said Takaseki.

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When the Bengoshi JP News Editorial Department requested comment from ES Global Japan Co., Ltd. and GL Events Japan K.K., ES Global provided the following response:

“Although our company has no direct contractual relationship with the third-tier subcontractor (SEIKEN Co., Ltd.) that is claiming to have not received a portion of the construction fee, we are making efforts to understand the situation by communicating with relevant parties as necessary.
It is also a fact that we have been making the construction payments without delay to the primary subcontractor directly involved in the U.S. pavilion.”

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