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Nine Japanese auto parts makers plead guilty to U.S. price fixing
Last Updated: 2013-09-27 06:00 | Xinhua
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Nine Japanese auto parts makers and two executives have agreed to plead guilty and to pay a total of more than 740 million U.S. dollars in criminal fines for their roles in price fixing conspiracies, the U.S. Department of Justice said Thursday.

The department said in a statement that those companies were involved in separate conspiracies to fix the prices of more than 30 different products sold to U.S. car manufactures and installed in cars sold in the United States and elsewhere.

Prison terms of 12 and 14 months were also announced respectively for Tetsuya Kunida, a Japanese citizen, and Gary Walker of the United States, both the Department of Justice said have been former executives of U.S. subsidiaries of Japan-based automotive products suppliers.

"These international price-fixing conspiracies affected more than 5 billion dollars in automobile parts sold to U.S. car manufacturers, and more than 25 million cars purchased by American consumers were affected by the illegal conduct," U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said.

Some of the price-fixing conspiracies lasted for a decade or longer, said Scott Hammond, deputy assistant attorney general of the Antitrust Division's criminal enforcement program.

The companies that pleaded guilty and will pay fines are Hitachi Automotive Systems, Jtekt Corp., Mitsuba Corp., Mitsubishi Electric Corp., NSK Ltd., T. RAD Co. Ltd., Valeo Japan Co. Ltd., Yamashita Rubber Co. Ltd. and Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.

Including Thursday's settlements, 20 companies and 21 executives have been charged in the Justice Department's probe into price fixing and bid rigging in the auto parts industry.

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