The Justice Department says Bridgestone Corp. has agreed to pay a $28 million criminal fine for its roles in bid-rigging conspiracies and corrupt payments to Latin American officials that impacted prices for hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of marine hose and related products sold around the world.
The government says Bridgestone agreed to plead guilty to a two-count charge filed in federal court in Houston that alleges the company conspired to violate the Sherman Act and the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.
The court papers say that from 1999 to 2007, Tokyo-headquartered Bridgestone conspired to fix prices and allocate market shares of marine hose in the United States and overseas. Marine hose is used to transfer oil between tankers and storage facilities.
