Japan’s Diamond Electric Pleads Guilty to Price Fixing

Diamond Electric Manufacturing Co. has agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to fix the prices of ignition coils it sold to Ford, Toyota and other automakers in 2003-2010.

The U.S. Dept. of Justice has imposed a $19 million criminal fine on the Osaka-based company.

Separately, Takayoshi Matsunaga, an executive at Sweden's Autoliv Inc., will plead guilty to rigging bids in the U.S. He has agreed to a $20,000 fine and a sentence of a year and a day in American prison.

Autoliv pleaded guilty in June 2012 to fixing prices of airbags, seatbelts and steering wheels between 2006 and 2011. The company agreed to pay a $15 million fine.

The guilty pleas are the result of an ongoing investigation of cartel activity among auto suppliers by government authorities in Europe, Japan and the U.S.

Thus far in the U.S., 10 companies and 15 executives, including Diamond Electric and Matsunaga, have pleaded guilty to price fixing. The companies have been fined a combined $828 million. Most of the executives have been sentenced to serve between one and two years in prison.