UPDATE: Bridgestone To Plead Guilty, Pay $28 Million In Bid-Rigging, Bribery Case

Bridgestone Corp. (BRDCY) will plead guilty and pay a $28 million criminal fine for participating in bid-rigging and bribery conspiracies related to the sale of marine hose, the Justice Department announced Thursday.

The department said Bridgestone was part of an antitrust cartel that affected prices for hundreds of millions of dollars worth of marine hose, which is used to transfer oil from tankers to storage facilities.

Bridgestone conspired with other corporations to rig bids, fix prices and allocate market shares in the U.S. and elsewhere, the department said. It also said the company conspired to pay bribes to officials in Latin America to win business.

The company's actions took place from 1999 until as late as May 2007, the department said.

Bridgestone is the fifth company to be charged in the department's ongoing marine-hose investigation.

The department said it agreed to recommend a "substantially reduced" fine for Bridgestone because the company cooperated extensively with investigators, restructured parts of its business and fired many of its third-party agents.

Bridgestone emphasized its cooperation efforts in a written statement and also indicated it would withdraw from the marine hose business.

"We are committed to the efforts to further enhance and expand our remediation measures, and to conduct business in compliance with the competition and anticorruption laws around the world," the company said.

The Bridgestone plea agreement is subject to approval by a U.S. district court in Houston.

-By Brent Kendall, Dow Jones Newswires; 202-862-9222; [e-mail]