US Indicts 2 Japanese Executives In Disk-Drive Price-Fixing Conspiracy - Justice Dept.

Two senior sales executives of the Japanese manufacturer NHK Spring face charges of operating a long-running conspiracy to set prices for parts used in hard disk drives, the US Department of Justice said in a press release on Monday

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 14th February, 2020) Two senior sales executives of the Japanese manufacturer NHK Spring face charges of operating a long-running conspiracy to set prices for parts used in hard disk drives, the US Department of Justice said in a press release on Monday.

The former executives, Hitoshi Hashimoto and Hiroyuki Tamura, were indicted after NHK Spring pleaded guilty and paid a $28.5 million fine to settle similar charges, according to the release.

"The indictment, filed yesterday [Thursday] in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges that, from at least as early as May 2008 and continuing until at least April 2016, Hashimoto and Tamura participated in a conspiracy with their competitors to stabilize, maintain, and fix the prices of suspension assemblies used in hard disk drives," the release said.

The Justice Department said the conspirators competed by allocating market shares to competitors and also by exchanging pricing information, including anticipated pricing quotes, for negotiations with US and foreign customers. price fixing is illegal under US antitrust laws.

Suspension assemblies are components of hard disk drives, which are used to store information electronically and are incorporated into computers or sold as stand-alone electronic storage devices, the release said.

NHK Spring is a diversified manufacturer of auto parts and industrial equipment, as well as disk-drive parts. The company is not affiliated with Japan's public television network NHK.