China fines 12 Japanese auto part firms more than $200 million over price fixing

The Chinese government has handed out a record setting fine to Japanese auto parts makers in a foreboding sign of things to come for Western firms which the government has found guilty of similar offenses.

Reuters reports that China's National Development Reform Commission has fined Japanese automakers a total of $201 million. The NDRC is using a law passed in 2008 as the basis for its investigations and prosecutions.

The law allows for punishments as great as 10 percent of a company's revenue for the previous year. The NDRC says that the punishment it gave the Japanese firms ranged from 4 to 8 percent of sales. The NDRC did not elaborate on whether those figures were based on the sales of the products they investigated, or all of a given company's sales in China over a particular period of time.

Some of the Japanese companies that were fined include Denso, Yazaki, Furukawa, NSK Ltd, NTN Corp, Jtekt Corp, Sumitomo and Mitsubishi. Regulators in both the United States and Europe have found Denso, Yazaki and Furukawa guilty of similar offenses, according to Reuters.

Sumitomo received the single largest fine of all the companies. They will have to pay the NRDC more than $47 million in damages.

The enormous fines levied by the NDRC are sure to send a shiver down the spine of a number of Western firms that are under investigation for anticompetitive practices. These include GlaxoSmithKline, Microsoft, Mercedes-Benz, Audi and Chrysler.

Mercedes-Benz was recently found guilty of manipulating the prices of its parts by the NRDC, but the regulators have yet to announce a penalty for the company.

Audi, China's best-selling, international, luxury car brand, has also been found guilty of price manipulation. They were fined $40 million. Both companies have lowered the prices of their parts.