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

DATE: WEDNESDAY, September 27, 1995                   TAG: 9509270062
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

JAPANESE FIRMS FINED IN PRICE-FIXING

Two Japanese paper companies have agreed to pay more than $3.5 million in fines for participating in a fax paper price-fixing conspiracy, the Justice Department said Tuesday.

Mitsubishi Paper Mills Ltd. and New Oji Paper Co. Ltd., both based in Tokyo, agreed to plead guilty to charges that resulted from the department's ongoing investigation of the $120 million-a-year thermal fax paper industry. The paper is used primarily by small businesses and home fax machine owners.

The plea agreements must be approved by a federal judge to become final.

In documents filed in federal court in Boston, Justice Department officials accused the companies of conspiring with others to raise thermal fax paper prices in the United States 10 percent from July 1991 to early 1992.

Mitsubishi Paper Mills, which sold about $4.8 million worth of fax paper to U.S. customers during that time, has agreed to pay a $1.8 million fine. New Oji, a merged company, sold $48 million in paper in the United States and will pay $1.75 million.

The investigation has resulted in about $10 million in fines so far, officials said.

- Associated Press