Go to prison for JapanInc. Jerb for life!

[Taro Toporific]

As Japanese auto suppliers get busted for price-fixing, their middle managers take the fall for superiors and get rewarded with a Jerb for life!

Confessions of a price fixer
---Supplier network shelters fugitives, ex-cons---
autonews.com 2014-11-16
...Thirty-one parts suppliers, mainly Japanese companies, making everything from wire harnesses to wiper switches, have pleaded guilty or agreed to plead guilty in the crackdown since 2011. Forty-six individuals, almost exclusively Japanese, have been charged. The indictments continue, with two more individuals indicted on Nov. 14.
No one has challenged the charges in court; 26 individuals agreed to prison instead. Another 20 have yet to enter pleas or are otherwise ignoring their indictments.
A review of the cases by Automotive News finds some of the execs are still in Japan, gainfully employed by the suppliers for which they are charged with rigging bids.
As of early November, companies including Hitachi Automotive Systems and Mitsubishi Electric Corp. were among those still directly or indirectly employing people indicted by the U.S. government on felony charges, which carry a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $1 million criminal fine for individuals.
Indicted individuals from other suppliers, such as Bridgestone Corp., Tokai Rika Co., Takata Corp. and Toyo Tire & Rubber Co., apparently left the companies but have not yet answered the DOJ's charges...insiders and lawyers say, then returned to work as tacit compensation for taking the blame.
More...

jerbs.jpg

[matsuki]

"Sometimes the parent company really cares, but the overseas office doesn't know the appropriate compliance," said Kaori Ito, deputy director of the ministry's Competition Enhancement Office.

Clueless execs....check

The fact that the target companies are almost exclusively Japanese has conjured a subtext of politically motivated Japan bashing. "Many suppliers complain about that," Shiozaki said.

Cries of victimization and Japan-bashing....check

"Nobody sets out to be a price fixer. It's just part of the job," Mutchnik said. "The job gets defined by cultural practices, and those are the things that put you on the wheel.

Cries of, "But it's our culture!" check

Of the individuals charged by the DOJ who have yet to plead guilty or are ignoring indictments, many remain in Japan, lawyers say, where extradition is the only way to get at them.

Fleeing back to Japan to avoid criminal charges...check