The Justice Department has a message for companies in trouble for fixing prices: If you’re going to come clean, you better not hold back.
On Thursday prosecutors secured a guilty plea from Japan’s Bridgestone Corp. and walloped the company with a $425 million criminal fine for price-fixing and bid rigging in the market for rubber auto parts. The DOJ’s press release made it clear that the hefty penalty was based partly on Bridgestone’s silence about the price-fixing conspiracy three years ago, when it paid a $28 million fine and admitted to antitrust and bribery violations concerning sales of rubber hose used by the marine oil industry.
