Nagoka, Japan-based Nippon Seiki Co. Ltd. has agreed to plead guilty and to pay
a $1 million criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices of
instrument panel clusters, commonly known as meters, installed in cars sold in
the United States and elsewhere, the Department of Justice announced.
According to a one-count felony charge filed today in the U.S. District Court
for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit, Nippon Seiki engaged in
conspiracies to rig bids for and to fix, stabilize, and maintain the prices of
instrument panel clusters sold to an automaker in the United States and
elsewhere. According to the court document, Nippon Seiki’s involvement in the
conspiracy lasted from at least as early as April 2008 until at least February
2010.
Nippon Seiki manufactures and sells a variety of automotive parts, including
instrument panel clusters. Instrument panel clusters are the mounted array of
instruments and gauges housed in front of the driver of an automobile. The
department said that Nippon Seiki and its co-conspirators carried out the
conspiracy by agreeing, during meetings and conversations, to rig bids for and
to fix, stabilize, and maintain the prices of instrument panel clusters, sold to
an automaker in the United States and elsewhere, on a model-by-model basis.
As part of the plea agreement, which will be subject to court approval,
Nippon Seiki has agreed to cooperate with the department’s investigation.
“For nearly two years, Nippon Seiki conspired to sell instrument control
panels at collusive and non-competitive prices, affecting the prices of many
automobiles sold in the United States,” said Scott D. Hammond, Deputy Assistant
Attorney General of the Antitrust Division’s criminal enforcement program. “The
division will continue to hold companies accountable for these types of
anti-competitive practices that harm American consumers.”
Including Nippon Seiki, eight companies and 11 executives have been charged
in the department’s ongoing investigation into price fixing and bid rigging in
the auto parts industry. Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd., DENSO Corp., Yazaki Corp.,
G.S. Electech Inc., Fujikura Ltd., and Autoliv Inc. pleaded guilty and were
sentenced to pay a total of more than $785 million in criminal fines. In July
2012, TRW Deutschland Holding GmbH agreed to plead guilty and is awaiting
sentencing. Additionally, seven of the individuals—Junichi Funo, Hirotsugu
Nagata, Tetsuya Ukai, Tsuneaki Hanamura, Ryoki Kawai, Shigeru Ogawa, and
Hisamitsu Takada—have been sentenced to pay criminal fines and to serve jail
sentences ranging from a year and a day to two years each. Makoto Hattori and
Norihiro Imai have pleaded guilty and await sentencing. Kazuhiko Kashimoto and
Toshio Sudo have also agreed to plead guilty.
Nippon Seiki is charged with price fixing in violation of the Sherman Act,
which carries a maximum penalty of a $100 million criminal fine for
corporations. The maximum fine for the company may be increased to twice the
gain derived from the crime or twice the loss suffered by the victims of the
crime, if either of those amounts is greater than the statutory maximum
fine.
Today’s prosecution arose from an ongoing federal antitrust investigation
into price fixing, bid rigging, and other anti-competitive conduct in the
automotive parts industry, which is being conducted by the Antitrust Division’s
National Criminal Enforcement Section and the FBI’s Detroit Field Office with
the assistance of the FBI Headquarters’ International Corruption Unit. Anyone
with information concerning this investigation is urged to call the Antitrust
Division’s National Criminal Enforcement Section at 202-307-6694, visit
www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.htm or call the FBI’s Detroit Field Office
at 313-965-2323.
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