Nippon Steel Corp and five other Japanese steelmakers were raided by Japan's Fair Trade Commission on suspicion that they fixed the price of stainless steel sheets, a commission official said.
The commission also raided Kawasaki Steel Corp, Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd, Nisshin Steel Co, Nippon Yakin Kogyo Co and Nippon Kinzoku Co, said Naokatsu Yokota, director of the management and planning division at the Fair Trade Commission.
Steel wholesalers are also under investigation, Yokota said, declining to name them.
The fine for price-fixing is 3 percent or 6 percent of the revenue from the products concerned, depending on the size of the companies involved, Yokota said.
About 13 companies were deemed guilty of price-fixing by the FTC last year, an official said. He wouldn't say whether the FTC was acting on a lead in today's raid.
Hiroshi Nakashima, a spokesman for Nippon Steel, said officials were probing the company's stainless sales department. He refused to give further details.
Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Industries Ltd plan to merge their stainless steel businesses in October to form Japan's largest maker of the metal, accounting for about a third of Japan's local demand.
JFE Holdings Inc said four offices of its Kawasaki steel unit were raided for investigation about its cold-rolled stainless steel products.
In January, Nisshin Steel, Japan's second-largest maker of stainless steel, said it planned to raise prices 20 percent next fiscal year in a bid to offset higher nickel prices and return to profit.
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