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AT LEAST FOUR chemical companies that participated in a 17-year international conspiracy to fix prices for sorbates used Chemical Market Reporter (CMR) as a mechanism to raise prices in the US, a Department of Justice (DOJ) official said last week.
"CMR has figured prominently in a lot of the work we've done in these international cases," notes Marc Siegel, an attorney in DOJ's antitrust division. "For the first time, I've specifically referenced the publication in our indictment of three Daicel individuals in the sorbates pricefixing case."
Daicel Chemical Industries Ltd. of Tokyo, Japan, recently became the fourth company to plead guilty and pay a criminal fine for its role in the conspiracy. Three leading executives of Daicel were also indieted on price-fixing charges by a federal grand jury in San Francisco, Calif, and warrants have been issued for their arrest.
Eastman...