Toyota Supplier Exec Pleads Guilty to Price Fixing

A former executive from Japan's G.S. Electech Inc. has pleaded guilty to rigging bids and fixing prices on antilock brake system components sold to Toyota Motor Corp., the U.S. Dept. of Justice reports.

The plea is the latest result of a continuing investigation into price fixing among auto suppliers in the U.S., Japan and Europe.

Shingo Okuda, formerly engineering and sales division manager for the supplier, will serve 13 months in a U.S. prison and pay a $20,000 fine. The Justice Dept. indictment says Okuda and co-conspirators met to fix prices between 2003 and early 2011.

Electech pleaded guilty in May to the conspiracy and agreed to pay a criminal fine of nearly $3 million. The Justice Dept. says 36 managers and 27 companies have now been charged, pleaded guilty or agreed to plead guilty in the U.S. alone.