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Michigan Auto Parts Maker Pleads Guilty to Price Fixing

WASHINGTON – A Japanese automobile parts manufacturer has agreed to plead guilty and pay a $1 million criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices of instrument panel clusters installed in cars sold in the United States and elsewhere.

Nippon Seiki Co. Ltd., based in Nagoka, Japan, 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.

The conspiracy, which lasted from at least April 2008 until at least February 2010, involved Nippon Seiki and its co-conspirators agreeing 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.

Instrument panel clusters are the mounted array of instruments and gauges housed in front of the driver of an automobile. As part of the plea agreement, which will be subject to court approval, Nippon Seiki has agreed to cooperate with the investigation.

This is the latest development in the ongoing federal antitrust investigation into price fixing, bid rigging and other anticompetitive conduct in the automotive parts industry. Eight companies and 11 executives have been charged in the investigation, with some already sentenced to pay criminal fines and serve jail sentences.

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, are leading the investigation. 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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