A global auto industry price-fixing scandal being investigated by the US Department of Justice continues to unfurl as ever more companies – most of them Japanese – are found guilty of fixing the prices of numerous types of vehicle parts. Toyo Tire & Rubber is the latest company to agree to plead guilty to the crime and to pay a fine of $120 million, according to a statement by the DoJ.
While some of us know Toyo best as a maker of sticky track-day tires, the company also supplies parts including anti-vibration rubber (used in engine mounts and suspension bushings) to automakers like Toyota, Nissan and Fuji Heavy Industries (which makes Subaru cars) and constant-velocity-joint boots (CV boots) to GKN Plc., both of which are parts that the DoJ investigation found to have fixed prices. The probe found that the anti-vibration parts price fixing started as early as March 1996 and continued until at least May 2012. The CV boot price fixing was found to have started as early as January 2006 and lasted until at least September 2010.
The DoJ says that Toyo has agreed to cooperate in the ongoing investigation, which, including Toyo, has found guilty 22 companies and 26 executives. 20 of those executives have been sentenced to prison in the US or entered plea agreements to serve time in prison.
