
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, July 15, 1994                   TAG: 9407160011
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO  
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S., CANADA AT END OF FAX PAPER TRAIL

The Justice Department and its Canadian counterparts say they broke up a conspiracy to raise prices of thermal fax machine paper by 10 percent.

A Japanese company, two U.S. affiliates of Japanese companies and an executive agreed to plead guilty and pay $6.3 million in criminal fines, Attorney General Janet Reno said Thursday. The agreement was filed in U.S. District Court in Boston.

``I think consumers will pay less for fax paper,'' said Anne K. Bingaman, assistant attorney general for the antitrust division. Thermal facsimile paper, the shiny paper sold in rolls, is most commonly bought by small business and consumers for home fax machines.

(At the Staples Inc. office supply store in Roanoke, fax paper sells for $10.99 for a six-roll, 588-foot-long package or $16.75 for a package of four rolls with a total of 656 feet, a store spokesman said Thursday.)

Bingaman said the three firms involved in the case - Kanzaki Speciality Papers Inc. of Ware, Mass.; Mitsubishi Corp. of Tokyo; and Mitsubishi International Corp. of New York - controlled up to 45 percent of the $120 million fax-paper market.

Kanzaki and its former president, Kazuhiko Watanabe, were charged with conspiring with Mitsubishi and others to fix and raise prices of thermal fax paper in North America in 1991 and 1992.

Canada's Bureau of Competition pursued the case as well. Kanzaki agreed to plead guilty Tuesday in Ottawa to a charge of conspiracy to lessen competition and was fined $686,000. Canadian and U.S. authorities cooperated in the case, which they described as the first joint U.S.-Canadian criminal antitrust prosecution.

``This sends an important message to foreign firms that want to business in the United States,'' Reno said. ``They must take our antitrust laws seriously ... ''

George Addy, director of investigation at Canada's Bureau of Competition Policy, said the case began with a complaint from a Toronto businessman about prices of thermal fax paper.

The Justice Department said the defendants and unnamed co-conspirators met in Tarrytown, N.Y., in July 1991 to increase the price of jumbo roll thermal facsimile paper.

by CNB