NEW YORK—T.RAD Co. Ltd. and Fujikura Ltd. are the latest to agree to civil settlements linked the ongoing U.S. criminal antitrust investigation into automotive supplier fixing.
Attorney Hollis Salzman of the Robins Kaplan law firm in New York represented a group of more than 50 individuals who purchased or leased a new vehicle containing auto parts at issue in the federal litigation.
The individual compensation available from the settlements is not yet clear.
T.RAD, a Japanese supplier of heat exchangers, air conditioners and radiators, agreed to pay at total of $7.41 million to the individuals involved in the civil lawsuit, the office of Robins Kaplan said in a statement.
T.RAD's settlement amount will pay off two settlement classes, according to court documents.
The first is a group of individuals who purchased vehicles that contained a radiator at issue in the investigation or indirectly purchased one or more radiators as a replacement part. This settlement totals $6.7 million.
The second settlement class is a group of individuals who purchased a vehicle containing automatic transmission fluid warmers at issue or indirectly purchased one or more of these warmers as a replacement part. This settlement totals $713,780.
T.RAD pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court to involvement in the price-fixing scheme in 2013 and agreed to pay a $13.75 million criminal fine.
In May, a former T.RAD executive was indicted on one charge of conspiring to fix the prices of radiators sold to Honda Motor Co. and Toyota Motor Corp. The U.S. Department of Justice said this price fixing activity took place as early as October 2003 and through February 2010.
Fujikura agreed to pay $7.14 million to individuals involved in the civil lawsuit. The Japanese supplier pleaded guilty to its involvement in price fixing in 2012 and agreed to pay a $20 million fine for its role in antitrust activity, the New York law firm said.
Also as part of the settlement, Fujikura and T.RAD are required to provide a wide variety of transactional data and documents, according to court documents.
So far, 55 individuals have been charged in the U.S. and 35 companies have pleaded guilty or agreed to plead guilty as a result of the federal price fixing probe. These companies have agreed to pay a combined total of $2.5 billion in criminal fines—making it the largest antitrust prosecution in U.S. history.
Similar investigations have been ongoing in Europe and Asia.