The Foreign Ministry will urge major trading house Mitsui & Co. to temporarily refrain from bidding on projects related to official development assistance, ministry sources said Thursday.

The ministry is also poised to request that ODA recipient countries exclude Mitsui from bidding on such projects, following the arrests of three Mitsui employees for allegedly rigging the bid for a government-funded power project on Russian-held Kunashiri Island in 2000, according to the sources.

The three Mitsui employees are believed to have conspired with two trading firms to win the government project and wrongfully obtained bidding information from Foreign Ministry officials, according to Tokyo prosecutors.

In May, the ministry excluded Nippon Koei Co. and JGC Corp. from bidding on ODA-related projects for three months due to alleged meddling in the bidding for the construction of an accommodations and evacuation facility on Kunashiri.

The facility was dubbed "Muneo House" after lawmaker Muneo Suzuki, who allegedly exerted his political influence over the bidding process. Suzuki was indicated Wednesday on a separate bribery charge.

It is expected that Mitsui will be given similar penalties as those against Koei and JGC, the sources said.

Mitsui said Thursday it has returned some 205 million yen to the government-funded Cooperation Committee to reimburse the excess amount it received for construction of diesel power stations on the Russian-held islands.

On Tuesday, Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi told the House of Councilors Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Cooperation Committee had repeatedly asked Mitsui to return the money.

The excess payment comprised consumption tax on the project, but it was unnecessary to pay the tax as the Russian-held islands are considered foreign territory under Japan's tariff laws despite Tokyo's claim to sovereignty over them.

The Cooperation Committee was established in 1993 by Japan and former Soviet republics to help those republics and to conduct aid projects on the four Russian-held islands claimed by Tokyo.

Mitsui, established in 1876, is one of the largest trading houses in Japan, with capital of about 190 billion yen. It constitutes a core company in the Mitsui group. Sales totaled about 12.6 trillion yen for the business year that ended in March.