Update May 2010: Manuli Ruber Industries and Sumitomo Rubber Industries have agreed to pay fines of $4.5 million and $250,000, respectively, and to cooperate with the plaintiffs in on going litigation to settle claims that they participated in the marine hose price fixing conspiracy. These deals leave only two companies remaining in the multidistrict litigation.
Update May 2009: In this multi-jurisdictional cartel investigation, the DOJ alleged that Virginia Harbor Services participated in two separate conspiracies to allocate customers and rig bids for: 1) contracts to sell foam-filled marine fenders and buoys between December 2002 and August 2005; and 2) contracts to sell plastic marine pilings between December 2002 and May 2003. In the other case, DOJ alleged that Trelleborg Industries participated in a conspiracy from at least 1999 through May 2007 to allocate market shares, fix prices and rig bids for contracts to sell marine hose to purchasers in the U.S. and elsewhere. Two subsidiaries of Trelleborg AB – Virginia-based Harbor Services Inc., and France-based Trelleborg Industries SAS – agreed to plead guilty and pay a total of $11 million in criminal fines for participating in separate conspiracies to inflate the price of marine products. Under the terms of the yet to be approved plea agreements, Virginia Harbor Services agreed to pay $7.5 million, and Trelleborg Industries agreed to pay $3.5 million and each company agreed to cooperate fully in the DOJ’s ongoing investigation.
On January 28, 2009, the EC fined five groups – Bridgestone, Dunlop Oil & Marine/Continental, Trelleborg, Parker ITR and Manuli – a total of 131 million euros as a result of their participation in a marine hose price fixing cartel between 1986 and 2007. Yokohama, according to a Commission statement, was a cartel member, but was not fined because it exposed the cartel.