The Department of Justice collected $1.86 billion in criminal fines and penalties resulting from Antitrust Division prosecutions in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2014, marking one of the largest annual totals for the Division.

Of that total, five of the companies paid penalties that exceeded $100 million, including the fourth-largest fine the Antitrust Division has ever obtained—a $425 million criminal fine levied against Bridgestone for its role in a conspiracy to fix prices of automotive anti-vibration rubber parts installed in cars sold in the United States and elsewhere. The second largest was a $195 million criminal fine levied against Hitachi Automotive Systems.

The three other companies that paid fines and penalties exceeding $100 million were Mitsubishi Electric, with $190 million; Toyo Tire & Rubber, with $120 million; and JTEKT, with $103.2 million. As Compliance Week previously reported, these criminal fines were the result of a widespread price fixing and bid rigging scheme in the auto parts industry.

The collection total also includes penalties of more than $561 million received as a result of the division’s LIBOR investigation, which has been conducted in cooperation with the Justice Department’s Criminal Division. In addition, in the last fiscal year the Antitrust Division obtained jail terms for 21 individual defendants, with an average sentence of 26 months, the third-highest average ever.

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