Mitsui & Co. and two of its U.S. subsidiaries have agreed to pay a combined $53 million (about 5.8 billion yen) to settle a class-action lawsuit in the United States over suspected vitamin price-fixing, Mitsui said Tuesday.
The two Mitsui subsidiaries are Mitsui & Co. (U.S.A.) in New York and Ohio-based Bioproducts Inc. Mitsui & Co., Bioproducts and two non-Mitsui group firms were ordered in June to pay a total of $49 million in damages. The case was filed by consumers at the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
The four firms plotted to fix the price of vitamin B-4, used as an animal feed supplement, between 1988 and 1998, the plaintiffs said.