TDK Corp., NHK Spring Accused of Hard Disk Parts Price Fixing

TDK Corp. and NHK Spring Co. Ltd. were hit with an antitrust lawsuit accusing the Japanese conglomerates of leading a global conspiracy to inflate the prices of a key hard disk drive component.

TDK, NHK, and their affiliates have illegally exchanged pricing information about HDD suspension assemblies, which use magnetism to store information electronically, and have inked secret deals not to compete with one another, according to the consumer complaint filed in the Eastern District of Michigan.

Those anti-competitive actions have helped the companies shore up their 90% dominance of the global market, which has let them sell the suspension ...