An appliance company based in Honolulu (K-N-D Appliances and proprietors Kelly and Dennis Higashi) has filed a putative class action against several refrigerator component manufacturers and sellers, including Whirlpool, Tecumseh Products, and Panasonic, alleging the companies engaged in a conspiracy to fix the prices of hermetically sealed compressors.
This has meant that, so far as we know, that all three companies have received subpoenas in a global investigation into possible price-fixing of compressors.
Whirlpool has said it received a grand jury subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice. Tecumseh Products Co said earlier this week that it had also been contacted.
“The Antitrust Division is investigating the possibility of anti-competitive practices in the compressor industry,” a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Justice said. “We are coordinating with other foreign competition authorities.”
Brazil’s federal police have also said in a statement that it had served six search warrants in Sao Paulo and Santa Catarina states to gather evidence of an alleged cartel in compressors. Nearly 60 federal police agents, Justice ministry antitrust officials and state prosecutors took part.
“The initial investigation shows that companies involved had agreed, through their managers, to fix price increases and also exchanged commercially sensitive information, harming free competition and consumers,” the Brazil police said in the statement.
Whirlpool, the world’s top appliance maker, said it received the U.S. subpoena on Tuesday. That same day, antitrust authorities visited Whirlpool’s subsidiaries in Brazil and Italy asking for similar information, the company added.
Whirlpool, which faced lengthy U.S. antitrust scrutiny in its 2006 buyout of Maytag, gave no further details on the compressor investigations, but said it will cooperate fully. It added it does not know of any charges filed against the company or its employees.
On Wednesday, compressor maker Tecumseh Products disclosed it had received a U.S. Justice Department subpoena and formal information request from the Secretariat of Economic Law of Brazil’s Justice Ministry. It said the European Commission has also begun an investigation of the compressor industry.
Full Press Release
New York – Levin Law, a class action law firm, has launched a nationwide investigation on behalf of consumers and businesses who purchased refrigerators, ice makers, water fountains, air conditioners and other refrigeration appliances from Whirlpool Corp., the world’s largest appliance maker, and several competitors, including Tecumseh Products and Panasonic. These companies face a global antitrust investigation into possible price fixing of compressors used in refrigeration appliances.
Direct purchasers of Whirlpool, Tecumseh, or Panasonic refrigerators, air conditioning units, or other appliances that contain compressors manufactured by one of these companies, may be entitled to compensation. Contact Levin Law at www.law29.com or toll free 1.888.93.law29 (or 1.888.935.2929) for more information.
Empresa Brasileira de Compressores SA (Embraco), Whirlpool’s compressor division in Brazil, is being probed by the country’s antitrust authority, Brazil’s Justice Ministry announced. The investigation is part of a coordinated cartel probe with authorities in the United States and Europe. Under EU law, companies can be fined as much as 10% of annual sales for breaking antitrust rules. The commission has made fighting cartels a priority in recent years, imposing record penalties on companies. In Brazil, companies may be fined as much as 30% of gross revenue and managers may be imprisoned for as long as five years.
The European Commission, the EU’s antitrust authority, raided the offices of Danfoss A/S, a Nordborg, Denmark-based maker of refrigeration parts, in Denmark, Germany and Italy, Ole Daugbjerg, a spokesman for closely held Danfoss reported. In a related action, Tecumseh Products Co. said it received subpoenas from antitrust authorities in the United States and Brazil regarding an investigation into possible price-fixing in the compressor market.