Story first appeared in the Detroit Free Press.
An executive with automotive supplier Denso, pleaded guilty and will serve one year and one day in prison for conspiring to fix prices and rig bids for heater control panels installed in cars, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Monday.
According to the charge, the involvement in the conspiracy lasted from at least as early as August 2006 until at least June 2009. He has agreed to pay a $20,000 criminal fine and to cooperate with the department's investigation.
Denso is the world's largest automotive supplier with sales of $37.7 billion for the year ended March 31, 2011. Its U.S. headquarters are in Southfield. The Japanese manufacturer makes a wide range of parts and technologies, including air-conditioners, fuel-injection and other engine control components, windshield wipers, horns, air bags and cruise control systems, as well as the heater control systems at the center of this charge.
In January, Denso agreed to pay a $78-million fine, while electrical component supplier Yazaki agreed to pay a $470-million fine and plead guilty as part of the largest antitrust case ever brought by the U.S. Department of Justice.
Yazaki's fine is the second-highest imposed on a company for price-fixing, the Justice Department said. The biggest was $500 million paid by Switzerland's F. Hoffmann-La Roche in 1999 for conspiring to raise vitamin prices.
The supplier also said its chairman, president and some board members and executive directors would voluntarily return 10% to 30% of their compensation for three months starting in February.
Four Yazaki executives pleaded guilty and agreed to serve prison time ranging from 15 months to two years.
The Justice Department previously settled with Tokyo-based Furukawa Electric, which agreed to plead guilty and pay a $200-million fine for price-fixing in the same probe.
The cases against Furukawa, Yazaki and Denso are all filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan.
The settlements triggered a slew of civil lawsuits involving wire-harness systems that are making their way through the courts. Competing suppliers and car buyers say they were financially injured because of the price fixing involving the wire-harness systems and other components.
Although Justice Department officials have declined to say which automakers were harmed by the price-fixing, two of four Yazaki executives charged managed business with Toyota and Honda.
Currently, more than 50 suits are pending nationwide with at least a dozen in Detroit.
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