Zeon Chemicals sets aside $16 million to settle NBR suits

Pittsburgh, Philadelphia --Zeon Chemicals Inc. has set aside $16 million to settle civil lawsuits arising from its admitted price-fixing of acrylonitrile butadiene rubber from May 2002 through December 2002.

The proposed settlement, filed with the US District Court for Western Pennsylvania, requires Zeon Chemicals to cooperate in prosecuting claims against other companies charged with participating in the price-fixing scheme.

Zeon agreed in January to plead guilty and pay a $10.5 million criminal fine for participating in a conspiracy to fix prices of nitrile rubber. The government said the subsidiary of Japan's Zeon Corp. conspired with unnamed co-conspirators to suppress and eliminate competition in the market for NBR in the US and elsewhere.

The plaintiffs that filed the class action suit against Zeon and others are: Diamond Holding Corp., Industrial Rubber Products LLC, Monmouth Rubber & Plastics Corp., Polymerics Inc., Precision Associates Inc., Rubber Engineering and Development Co. and Quabaug Corp.

Other defendants named in the suit are Bayer AG, Bayer Corp., Bayer Polymers LLC, Crompton Corp., DESC S.A. de CV, DSM Copolymer Inc., ParaTec Elastomers LLC, Polimeri Europa SpA, Polimeri Europa Americas Inc., Syndial SpA and Uniroyal Chemical Co. Inc.

From Rubber & Plastics News (A Crain publication)