U.S. has issued huge fines for Japanese auto parts suppliers

As part of a global price manipulation survey, Denso and Denso, two large Japanese auto parts makers, have agreed to pay the U.S. government a total fine of 548 million U.S. dollars.

On February 10, 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that four senior executives of Yazaki Kogyo Co., Ltd. have pleaded guilty and will serve 15 months to two years. The lawsuits against Denso and Yazaki were conducted after the investigation of several other electrical and electronic component suppliers of wiring harnesses, instrument panels, and heating controller panels. The antitrust department of the US Department of Justice described the auto parts survey as the largest scale and transaction volume of the illegal cases investigated by the company. EU, Japanese and Canadian government agencies were also involved in the survey.

Deputy deputy procurator Sharis Bozen said: "Our investigation is still in progress." Japan's Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. agreed in September last year to pay a fine of 200 million U.S. dollars and settled on its auto parts survey. The three Japanese executives of Furukawa Electric also pleaded guilty and sentenced him to a corresponding sentence. After a large number of mergers and other industry dynamics have led to concerns about non-competitive activities, auto parts makers around the world have been intensively reviewed by antitrust regulators. The U.S. Department of Justice and the European Commission revealed last summer that they are investigating airbag supplier Sweden’s Autolif and seatbelt supplier TRW in Michigan, USA.