CALIFORNIA : BRIEFLY / CONSUMER PRODUCTS : 3 Japan Firms Fined in Vitamin Price Plot

Three Japanese companies have agreed to plead guilty and pay $137 million in fines for taking part in a worldwide conspiracy to control the prices of vitamins, the U.S. Justice Department said. “This conspiracy artificially inflated the cost to virtually every American of such everyday necessities as milk, bread, orange juice and cereal, which were fortified with vitamins produced by these companies,” said Joel Klein, assistant attorney general in charge of antitrust activities. Fined were Takeda Chemical Industries, Eisai Co., and Daiichi Pharmaceutical Co. Takeda Chemical paid the biggest fine, at $72 million. In May, the Justice Department announced a $500-million fine against F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., a Swiss pharmaceutical company, in the vitamin price-fixing investigation. That was the largest federal criminal fine ever imposed in any type of case.