FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                          AT
TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1995                               (202) 616-2771
                                               TDD (202) 514-1888

   NORTHEAST FAX PAPER IMPORTER CHARGED IN JUSTICE DEPARTMENT'S
           INVESTIGATION OF INTERNATIONAL PRICE FIXING

     WASHINGTON, D.C. -- A New York based importer of fax paper
produced in Japan was charged today in U.S. District Court in
Boston for participating in a price fixing conspiracy that caused
a 10 percent increase in the cost of thermal fax paper to U.S.
customers, according to the Department of Justice's Antitrust
Division.  This is the second case in the Department's ongoing
investigation of international price fixing in the thermal fax
paper industry.
     Thermal fax paper is used primarily by small businesses and
home fax machine owners who depend on low prices for office
products.
     Anne K. Bingaman, Assistant Attorney General in charge of
the Antitrust Division, said, "The Justice Department will
continue to prosecute international price fixing conspiracies
that rip off American consumers.  This case pits the interests of
large, international firms against the rights of domestic
consumers and small businesses to fair, competitive pricing."
     The court papers charged Elof Hansson Paper & Board Inc.,
based in New York City, with conspiring with others to fix and
raise the price of thermal fax paper sold in the United States
from August 1991 through March 1992.
     Similar charges were brought last summer against Kanzaki
Specialty Papers of Ware, Massachusetts, its former president,
Kazuhiko Watanabe, Mitsubishi International Corporation of New
York, and Mitsubishi Corporation of Tokyo, Japan.  These
defendants pleaded guilty and paid fines totalling approximately
$6.5 million.
     Elof Hansson Paper & Board Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary
of Elof Hansson AB of Goettberg, Sweden.  In 1991, it imported
approximately $5 million of thermal fax paper manufactured by the
Oji Paper Co. Ltd. of Japan.  The information charged that
representatives of the New York subsidiary had meetings and
telephone contacts with competitors in order to facilitate the
price fixing conspiracy.
     The maximum penalty for a corporation convicted under the
Sherman Act is a fine of $10 million, twice the pecuniary gain
the corporation derived from the crime, or twice the pecuniary
loss suffered by the victims of the crime, whichever is greater.
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