KYB Agrees to Plead Guilty and Pay $62 Million Criminal Fine for Price Fixing

According to The Department of Justice, Kayaba Industry Co. Ltd., dba KYB Corporation has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $62 million criminal fine for its role in a conspiracy to fix the price of shock absorbers installed in cars and motorcycles sold to U.S. consumers. 

According to charges filed, KYB conspired from the mid-1990s until 2012 to fix the prices of shock absorbers sold to Fuji Heavy Industries Ltd. (manufacturer of Subaru vehicles), Honda Motor Co. Ltd., Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., Nissan Motor Company Ltd., Suzuki Motor Corporation and Toyota Motor Company, including their subsidiaries in the United States. 

“KYB turned the competitive process on its head by agreeing with its competitors to fix the prices of shock absorbers installed in cars and motorcycles sold in the U.S.,” said Assistant Attorney General Bill Baer of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division.  “Working with the FBI and our other law enforcement partners, the Antitrust Division will continue to protect American car buyers and hold automotive part suppliers accountable for their illegal conduct.”

“Fixing prices and rigging bids is against the law and ultimately harms consumers by artificially inflating prices and creating a corrupt marketplace,” said Special Agent in Charge Angela L. Byers of the FBI’s Cincinnati Division.  “The FBI and our partners will continue to investigate anticompetitive practices and promote fair competition.”

According to the information filed in the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of Ohio, KYB, based in Tokyo, and its two co-conspirators agreed to allocate the supply of shock absorbers sold and determine the price submitted to the targeted vehicle manufacturers.  To keep prices up, KYB and its co-conspirators also agreed to coordinate on price adjustments requested by the vehicle manufacturers and strived to keep their conduct secret. 

Honda Motor Co Fined $70 Million for Under Reporting Injuries

 American Honda Motor Co. Inc. has agreed to pay $70 million in fines to resolve allegations made by US federal regulators that during a near 10-year period, from 2003 to 2014, the auto maker failed to report 1729 deaths and injuries related to possible safety defects in its vehicles. According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), Honda will pay two $35 million civil penalties, effectively resolving its alleged lapses in early-warning reporting.

The early-warning reporting requirements are part of the Transportation Recall Enhancement, Accountability and Documentation (TREAD) Act, which requires car manufacturers to submit reports to the NHTSA every quarter to alert the agency of deaths or injuries arising from possible safety defects. The NHTSA states that Honda failed to provide early-warning reports to the agency to alert it about safety-related issues. The fines also address Honda's alleged failure to report some warranty claims and customer satisfaction-related claims during that time, according to the agency.

Honda faced a barrage of class actions related to defective Takata air bags late in 2014, after which the NHTSA issued a special order directing Honda to explain its failure to fully report deaths and injuries related to possible auto safety defects, as required under the TREAD act.

According to the early-warning reports filed with the NHTSA, the 1,729 unreported injuries and deaths that Honda allegedly failed to report constituted more than double the number of incidents the automaker reported to the NHTSA during the past 11 years.

According to Honda, the under-reporting of those death and injury notices was due to “errors related to data entry, computer coding, regulatory interpretation, and other errors in warranty and property damage claims reporting.” Therefore, under the terms of the settlement, Honda has also agreed to conduct third-party audits of its reporting, train its staff in fulfilling TREAD Act requirements and devise compliance procedures, the NHTSA said.

Eight Car Makers Join in the Recall of Exploding Airbags



When designed correctly, airbags will save lives. According to the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration, airbags have saved approximately 35,000 lives since 1987. However, when airbags are defectively designed, they create a high risk of severe injury and death. As of 2009, defective airbags were responsible for 296 deaths, 59 life threatening injuries, and countless severe injuries.

Signs that you have  defective airbags are when one of the following occurs:

• The airbag inflates too quickly and aggressively, violently hitting the occupant in the face; or

• The airbag ruptures before inflation, spewing pieces of metal into the occupant’s body.
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NHTSA has opened an investigation into the issue and says that it knows of six incidents of ruptured bags and three injuries in high-humidity Florida and Puerto Rico. As of mid-July, eight car manufacturers including Honda, Mazda, Nissan, Toyota, BMW, Chrysler, Ford, and Subaru had joined in the recall of these defective Takata airbags. In the latest actions:

• Honda recalled 1.02 million vehicles in North America and 2.03 million worldwide. They were built from 2000 through 2005 and include some models of Civic, CR-V, Odyssey and Element. With this expansion, air bag recalls have affected nearly 4 million of the company’s older vehicles in North America.

• Nissan recalled 755,000 vehicles worldwide built from 2001 through 2003, with about a quarter-million Pathfinder, Cube and Infiniti FX35 models in North America.

• Mazda recalled nearly 160,000 vehicles made from 2002 through 2004, with about 15,000 in North America, including RX-8 and early Mazda6 sedans.

• Regional recalls in the U.S. by Honda, Nissan, Mazda, Toyota, BMW, Ford and Chrysler of certain vehicles in humid climates. NHTSA estimates that 1.5 million vehicles could be affected — the totals and lists of vehicles still were being compiled.

• Subaru is recalling nearly 8,600 Subaru Legacy cars, Outback wagons, Baja crossovers, and Impreza cars.

Since 2008, more than 10 million cars containing the defective Takata airbags have been recalled.