Managers of Kansai Electric Power Co.'s Kyoto branch received gifts worth ¥2.6 million ($24,300) from a former Fukui Prefecture town official and allowed the office to place orders with a construction company that had close links to the official without the bidding process, the utility said Saturday.

Three former vice presidents of the Kyoto branch received cash and gift coupons from Eiji Moriyama, the late deputy mayor of Takahama, Fukui Prefecture, in the expanding gift scandal involving the utility and the former official of the town that houses one of the company's nuclear power plants.

Kansai Electric had placed eight "special orders" between September 2014 and December 2017 with Yoshida Kaihatsu, which had close connections with Moriyama, without tendering a bid.