TRW Deutschland pled guilty to price fixing seatbelts, airbags and steering wheels sold to two German automobile manufacturers, and installed in cars sold in the United States yesterday. This is the second case filed over occupant safety systems sold to auto manufacturers as part of the department’s ongoing antitrust auto parts investigation.
TRW Deutschland agreed to pay a $5.1 million criminal fine and to cooperate with the department’s ongoing investigation. The plea agreement is subject to an almost certain court approval. The German automakers were unnamed, but BMW and Mercedes-Benz were making vehicles in the U.S. during the period under investigation.
According to a one-count felony charge filed in the U.S. District Court in Detroit, TRW Deutschland “engaged in a conspiracy to rig bids for, and to fix, stabilize and maintain the prices of seatbelts, airbags and steering wheels sold to automakers in the United States and elsewhere.”
TRW’s involvement in the conspiracy to fix prices lasted from January 2008 until at least June 2011. DOJ said that the TRW Automotive subsidiary and its co-conspirators carried out the conspiracy by agreeing, during meetings and conversations, to allocate the supply of seatbelts, airbags and steering wheels and sold the occupant safety parts at non-competitive prices to automakers in the United States and elsewhere.
Including TRW Deutschland, seven companies and 10 individuals have now 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 addition, 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 is scheduled to plead guilty on Aug. 22, 2012.
TRW Deutschland is charged with price fixing in violation of the Sherman Act, which carries a maximum penalty of a $100 million criminal fine for corporations, which makes the $5.1 million fine look like a gift form the U.S. government. The maximum fine 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.
There remains an ongoing federal antitrust investigation into price fixing, bid rigging and other anticompetitive 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 about this investigation should 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.
See:
- G.S. Electech Guilty of Price Fixing Auto Parts
- Yazaki Exec and Autoliv Plead Guilty on Price Fixing Auto Parts
- Another DENSO Exec Guilty of Price Fixing and Bid Rigging
- Tokyo Based Fujikura Guilty of Auto Parts Price Fixing
- G.S. Electech Guilty of Price Fixing Auto Parts
- DENSO Exec Pleads Guilty to Price Fixing on Auto Parts
- Chairman of Taiwan Auto Light Maker Guilty of Price Fixing
- Japanese Suppliers Yazaki, Denso Plead Guilty of Price Fixing
