Competition record
Kyowa Hakko
Deep profile · 1 linked library matter
Kyowa Hakko is a Japanese fermentation company that produces amino acids and related ingredients. It pleaded guilty with ADM and Ajinomoto in the mid-1990s US lysine cartel.
Overview
Kyowa Hakko is a Japanese company built on fermentation. It produces amino acids and other ingredients sold into pharmaceuticals, food, and animal feed. Lysine, the feed additive at the center of the US case, is one of those fermented products. Ajinomoto is the other large Japanese fermentation house in the same market.
In the mid-1990s Kyowa Hakko pleaded guilty, with Archer Daniels Midland and Ajinomoto, to fixing lysine prices and allocating the volumes each company would sell. Feed mills buying lysine were facing agreed prices rather than three suppliers competing for the order.
Corporate fines across the prosecutions exceeded $100 million, and executives went to prison. The library status is fined. This profile does not isolate Kyowa Hakko's own fine or name which executives served time. The citric-acid cartel is not this id.
Competition footprint
Lysine is a feed input, and the buyers are mills that mix it into rations.
An allocated volume caps how much a fermentation company may sell, which protects the agreed price.
The recorded outcome is guilty pleas, corporate fines over $100 million, and prison for executives.
Consumer & business angle
Livestock and poultry producers, through their feed suppliers, paid for the fixed additive.
ADM and Ajinomoto were the other producers in the same pleas.
What to watch
- How the three lysine pleas are kept distinct from ADM's separate citric-acid id.
- Compliance examples that use the lysine volume deals as a template of a hard-core cartel.
Markets
fermentation · amino acids · lysine · lysine feed additives · animal nutrition
Also known as: kyowa hakko, kyowa hakko bio