FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          AT
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 24, 1996                          (202) 616-2771
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888

     THREE JAPANESE EXECUTIVES INDICTED AS JUSTICE DEPARTMENT
CONTINUES ITS PROBE IN PRICE FIXING IN THE FAX PAPER INDUSTRY


     WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A Boston federal grand jury returned two
separate indictments today charging three Japanese fax paper
executives with price fixing in connection with the Department of
Justice's ongoing antitrust investigation into the $120 million a
year thermal fax paper market.  
     The Department's investigation has already resulted in
several individual and corporate guilty pleas, with fines
totaling more than $10 million.  
     Thermal fax paper is used primarily by small businesses and
home fax machine owners who depend on low prices for their office
products.  
     Yoshihiro Kurachi and Noburu Kurushima were charged in a
one-count felony indictment with conspiring to fix the price of
thermal fax paper sold to a major customer, Rittenhouse Inc.     
     According to the charges, Kurushima, an executive with
Mitsubishi Paper Mills, and Kurachi, an executive with Kanzaki
Paper Manufacturing Co. Ltd., met in Japan in 1991 and agreed not
to discount the price of fax paper sold to Rittenhouse.  As a
result, Rittenhouse purchased fax paper at higher prices. 
Rittenhouse, located in Park Ridge, Illinois, purchased
approximately $10 million of fax paper in 1991.
     In a separate indictment, Koichi Tano, an executive with
Kanzaki Paper Manufacturing Co. Ltd., was charged with
participating in a price fixing agreement from July 1991 until at
least February 1992.  
     According to the charges, Tano met with co-conspirators at
the offices of Kanzaki Specialty Papers Inc., located in
Tarrytown, New York, and agreed to increase the prices of fax
paper sold in North America.
     Anne K. Bingaman, Assistant Attorney General in charge of
the Antitrust Division, stated that the charges arose from a
grand jury investigation being conducted by the Antitrust
Division's Litigation I Section in Washington, D.C.  The
investigation is continuing and has been conducted jointly with
Canadian Antitrust authorities. 
     In September 1995, Mitsubishi Paper Mills and New Oji Paper
Co. agreed to plead guilty and settle price fixing charges. 
Mitsubishi Paper Mills agreed to pay $1.8 million and New Oji
Paper agreed to pay $1.75 million in criminal fines.
     Kanzaki Specialty Papers, of Ware, Massachusetts; its former
president, Kazuhiko Watanabe; Mitsubishi International
Corporation, of New York; Mitsubishi Corporation, of Tokyo,
Japan; and Elof Hansson Paper & Board Inc. previously pleaded
guilty to similar price fixing charges.  Kanzaki Specialty Papers
was fined $4.5 million and Watanabe was fined $165,000. 
Mitsubishi Corporation was fined $1.26 million and Mitsubishi
International was fined $450,000.  Elof Hansson was fined
$200,000.
     In December 1995, a Boston grand jury indicted U.S. and
Japanese corporations and individuals for participating in price-
fixing conspiracies.  Jujo Paper Co. Ltd. and Nippon Paper
Industries Co. Ltd., both of Tokyo, Japan, were charged with
participating in a 1990 conspiracy to fix the price of fax paper
sold in North America.  Appleton Papers Inc. of Appleton,
Wisconsin, its vice president of research and development, Jerry
Wallace, and Hirinori Ichida, an executive of Mitsubishi Paper
Mills Ltd., of Tokyo, Japan, were charged with participating in a
1991 conspiracy to fix the price of fax paper sold to customers
in North America.  These charges are pending trial. 
     The maximum penalty for an individual convicted of a Sherman
Act violation is three years in jail and a fine of the greater of
$350,000, twice the pecuniary gain the individual derived from
the crime, or twice the pecuniary loss suffered by the victims of
the crime.
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96-188