Japanese Auto Parts Suppliers To Pay $548 Million Fine ... Find out why

In recent months, three Japanese car-parts companies have agreed to pay a combined $748 million in fines for bid rigging and price fixing in the U.S. The amount paid by the three—Tokyo-listed Furukawa Electric and Denso, as well as Yazaki, a private company—is more than the total of levies collected by the U.S. Justice Department's antitrust division in the previous fiscal year.

Fines don't generally outweigh the upside of price fixing for the companies involved, according to a 2011 American Antitrust Institute working paper. On average, penalties imposed on cartels globally equate to only about 38% of the overcharge, the AAI said.