China imposes massive fine on Japanese car parts manufacturers for price fixing
China yesterday announced that it had fined Japanese car parts makers a record 1.235bn yuan (£121m) for manipulating prices.
The punishment is part of Beijing’s move to enforce an anti-trust law that has targeted major corporations and revived protectionism concerns.
The fines, the largest so far meted out by the pricing regulator, the National Development Reform Commission (NDRC), follow a global crackdown, including in the US and Europe, on price collusion in the car parts sector, which has also mostly affected Japanese companies.
In China, parts maker Sumitomo Electric Industries) was the hardest hit by the NDRC with a 290.4m yuan fine.
Denso Corp and Mitsubishi Electric were also among the 12 parts makers the NDRC said its investigation showed had colluded to reduce competition and establish favourable pricing on their products.
“China is a country ruled by law, everyone should be equal before the law,” said Li Pumin, NDRC’s secretary general.
The agreements were in violation of China’s anti-monopoly law and “improperly affected the pricing for auto parts, entire vehicles and bearings,” the NDRC said.