A major international investigation into price fixing and bid rigging in the automobile parts industry may involve Taiwan.
US Attorney General Eric Holder announced on Thursday that nine Japan-based companies and two executives have agreed to plead guilty — and have been fined a total of US$740 million in criminal fines — for their roles in separate conspiracies.
“These international price-fixing conspiracies affected more than US$5 billion in automobile parts sold to US car manufacturers,” Holder said.
“This auto-parts investigation is the largest criminal investigation the antitrust division has ever pursued, both in terms of its scope and the commerce affected by the alleged illegal conduct,” he said.
The nine Japanese firms, including Hitachi Automotive Systems and Mitsubishi Electric, entered plea agreements with the US Department of Justice over separate conspiracies to fix the prices of more than 30 different products, affecting more than 25 million cars purchased by US motorists.
The other firms involved in the plea deal are Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Jtekt Corp, Mitsuba Corp, NSK Ltd, T.RAD Co Ltd, Valeo Japan Co Ltd and Yamashita Rubber Co Ltd.
Holder said the investigation was continuing, but refused to confirm that Taiwanese companies could be involved.
During a special Department of Justice briefing, Holder was asked: “Are there other countries involved — like South Korea and Taiwan — and do you envisage this kind of broadening both in Japan itself and to other countries as well?”
Another Department of Justice official replied: “The investigation is ongoing. And for that reason, I can’t identify for you who the additional subjects of the investigation are or where they are located. I can tell you that the investigation involves producers of auto parts around the world.”
Another source close to the investigation told the Taipei Times that Taiwan “might very well” be involved.
American companies including Chrysler Group LLC, Ford Motor Co and General Motors Corp, as well as US subsidiaries of Honda Motor Co, Mazda Motor Corp, Mitsubishi, Nissan Motor Co, Subaru and Toyota Motor Corp “were victims of these illegal cartels,” Holder said.
Among the parts involved in the price fixing were seatbelts, radiators, windshield wipers, air conditioning systems, power window motors and power steering parts.
“Company executives met face to face in the US and in Japan and talked on the phone to reach collusive agreements to rig bids, to fix prices and to allocate the supply of auto parts sold to US car companies,” Holder said.
“To keep their illegal conduct secret, they used code names and they met in remote locations,” he said, adding that the executives followed up with each other regularly to make sure the collusive agreements were being adhered to.
Holder said that including this week’s charges, a total of 20 companies and 21 executives have been charged in the ongoing investigation. All 20 companies have either pleaded guilty or have agreed to plead guilty. All told, they have also agreed to pay more than US$1.6 billion in criminal fines.
Additional reporting by AFP
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS