WASHINGTON – In a shocking turn of events, Toshio Sudo, a Tokyo-based executive of Yazaki Corporation, has agreed to plead guilty to price fixing on automobile parts installed in U.S. cars, the Department of Justice announced today.
Sudo is the 11th executive to be charged in the government’s ongoing investigation into price fixing and bid rigging in the auto parts industry. In a one-count felony charge filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan in Detroit, Sudo was charged with engaging in a conspiracy to rig bids for, and to fix, stabilize and maintain the prices of instrument panel clusters sold to customers in the United States and elsewhere.
According to the charge, Sudo’s involvement in the conspiracy lasted from at least as early as January 2003 until at least February 2009. The department said that Sudo and his co-conspirators carried out the conspiracy by agreeing, during meetings and conversations, to allocate the supply of instrument panel clusters and sold the parts at noncompetitive prices to automakers in the United States and elsewhere.
Instrument panel clusters are the mounted array of instruments and gauges housed in front of the driver of an automobile. According to the charge, Sudo and his co-conspirators carried out the conspiracy by, among other things, agreeing during meetings and discussions to coordinate bids submitted to, and price adjustments requested by, automobile manufacturers.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Sudo has agreed to serve 14 months in a U.S. prison, pay a $20,000 criminal fine, and cooperate with the department’s investigation.
“The conspiracies to fix prices and rig bids in the automotive industry represent a serious crime against the United States,” said Robert D. Foley III, Special Agent in Charge of the FBI’s Detroit Field Office. “Car makers and car buyers pay the price for these illegal activities. The FBI is committed to vigorously pursuing and stopping those who commit these crimes.”
Yazaki, along with seven other companies and 10 executives, has been charged in the Department of Justice’s ongoing investigation into price fixing and bid rigging in the auto parts industry. Including Sudo, seven of the individuals have been sentenced to pay criminal fines and to serve jail sentences ranging from a year and a day to two years each.
The maximum sentence for Sudo is 10 years and a fine of $1 million.
“The division and its law enforcement partners will continue to do everything in our power to detect these cartels and bring them to justice,” said Scott D. Hammond, Deputy Assistant Attorney General of the Antitrust Division’s criminal enforcement program.
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