Panasonic, Whirlpool to pay $140 million criminal fines for price-fixing

Panasonic Corp. and a Whirlpool Corp. subsidiary agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy charges and pay $140.9 million in criminal fines for their roles in a price-fixing plot, the Department of Justice announced.

Panasonic, a Japanese corporation, and Embraco, a Delaware-based refrigerant compressor producer and seller, participated in an international conspiracy to fix the prices of compressors in refrigerators sold to consumers and businesses in the United States and elsewhere, according to separate felony charges filed today in U.S. District Court in Detroit.