Japanese supplier Furukawa Electric Co. Ltd. will pay a $200 million fine, and three of its executives will appear before a federal judge in Detroit to plead guilty for their role in alleged global price-fixing among automotive wire-harness suppliers on three continents. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
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The charges filed in Detroit today against Hirotsugu Nagata, Junichi Funo and Tetsuya Ukai are the first in what acting Assistant Attorney General Sharis Pozen called a larger ongoing investigation of alleged agreements to sell components to other companies “at a noncompetitive, rigged price” for years.

“We have a broad investigation ongoing. We believe this was pernicious, it operated on a model-by-model basis, and it did affect U.S. consumers and cars manufactured within the United States,” said Pozen, who is assigned to the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Nagata, former CFO of U.S. subsidiary American Furukawa Inc. in Plymouth from 2004 to 2009, faces one federal charge of conspiracy to restrain trade in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. Similarly charged was Ukai, who held several management positions in Furukawa’s Honda sales division, and Funo, who was assistant general manager of Honda sales at American Furukawa until 2009 and later general manager of Honda sales at the parent company.

All three will plead guilty and serve time at U.S. prisons under an agreement with the Justice Department. Nagata will serve 15 months under the deal with Justice, while Ukai will serve 18 months and Funo will serve one year and one day.

AN