A former key accounts manager for supplier Continental Automotive Korea Ltd. pleaded guilty for his role in rigging the prices of instrument panel clusters in the U.S., the Department of Justice said Tuesday.
Eun Soo Kim, a Korean citizen who was a fugitive for nearly five years, was arrested by German authorities in Frankfurt in September 2019. He agreed to extradition and arrived in Atlanta on Feb. 28, the department said.
Kim appeared before U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten on Monday in federal court. He pleaded guilty to conspiring to allocate sales of instrument panel clusters, rigging the prices and submitting rigged and noncompetitive bids for the panel clusters sold to Korean automakers and their subsidiaries, the department said.
Kim was sentenced to nine months in prison and will pay a criminal fine of $130,000.
In 2014, Continental Automotive Korea and Continental Automotive Electronics — both South Korean subsidiaries of German parent company Continental AG — pleaded guilty to rigging the prices of instrument panel clusters and were ordered to pay a criminal fine of $4 million.
The panels were sold to Hyundai Motor Co., Kia Motors Corp. and Kia Motors Manufacturing Georgia for more than eight years. Kim participated in the conspiracy from as early as February 2008 until May 2012, the department said.
Automotive News has reached out to Continental and Hyundai for comment. A spokesman for Kia Motors deferred a request for comment to the Seoul headquarters.
