Two former top executives of Japanese auto parts supplier Diamond Electric will be imprisoned for more than a year in the US for price fixing, the US Justice Department said on Friday.
Shigehiko Ikenaga and Tatsuo Ikenaga, respectively the former president and vice president of the Osaka-based company, agreed to plead guilty to participating in a “global conspiracy” to fix prices of ignition coils installed in cars for the US market, the justice department said.
The conspiracy, spanning at least from 2003 to 2010, saw various manufacturers rigging bids and fixing prices for ignition coils sold to Ford, Toyota and Subaru.
Felony charges were filed in the US District Court in Detroit against the two on Friday as part of the plea agreement.
JAIL TIME
Shigehiko Ikenaga will serve 16 months in prison while his brother Tatsuo will serve 13 months. Both agreed to pay criminal fines of US$5,000 each.
The two executives are the sons of company founder Shigeji Ikenaga, who died in 2012.
Diamond Electric itself pleaded guilty to charges in the price-fixing probe in September last year, and was fined US$19 million.
The charges and sentences are part of a long-term, wide-ranging probe into price fixing by mainly Japanese auto parts makers that has led to charges against 24 companies and 28 individuals.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
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