Norihiro Imai, Price Fixing, Michigan 2024

A high-ranking executive of DENSO Corporation has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to fix prices and rig bids for heater control panels installed in U.S. cars, the Antitrust Division announced today.

Norihiro Imai, a Japanese national, is charged with price fixing in violation of the Sherman Act, which carries a maximum sentence of 10 years in prison and a $1 million criminal fine for individuals, with the maximum fine for an individual potentially being 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 Antitrust Division alleges that Imai, along with co-conspirators, engaged in a conspiracy to rig bids for and to fix, stabilize and maintain the prices of heater control panels sold to customers in the United States and elsewhere. According to the charge, Imai’s involvement in the conspiracy lasted from at least as early as August 2006 until at least June 2009.

Imai has agreed to serve one year and one day in a U.S. prison, to pay a $20,000 criminal fine and to cooperate with the department’s ongoing investigation. Including Imai, eight individuals and three companies have been charged in the government’s ongoing investigation into price fixing and bid rigging in the auto parts industry.

DENSO manufactures and sells a variety of automotive electrical parts, including heater control panels, which are located in the center console of an automobile and control the temperature of the interior environment of a vehicle.

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 conducting the ongoing federal antitrust investigation into price fixing, bid rigging and other anticompetitive conduct in the automotive parts industry.

If you have information concerning this investigation, please contact the Antitrust Division’s National Criminal Enforcement Section at 202-307-6694 or visit www.justice.gov/atr/contact/newcase.htm or call the FBI’s Detroit Field Office at 313-965-2323.

Source: https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/denso-corporation-executive-agrees-plead-guilty-price-fixing-and-bid-rigging-auto-parts