Criminal prosecutions of corrupt executives and businesses through 2006 secured some of the biggest fines in the department's history. In a summary issued earlier this month, the department said its antitrust division obtained the second highest sum of criminal fines ever in 2006 as prosecutors tackled corporate price-fixing, bid-rigging and procurement fraud schemes.

The highest criminal penalties ever were recorded in 1999, mainly due to a $500 million fine lodged against Swiss pharmaceutical giant F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. over a vitamins price-fixing scheme.

For the fiscal year ending September 30, the Justice Department said it had obtained criminal fines totaling $473.45 million, marking a 40% increase over 2005, as it filed 33 criminal cases, many involving multiple defendants.

The government's largest fine of the fiscal year, $300 million, was levied against Samsung Electronics Co. and its U.S. subsidiary, Samsung Semiconductor Inc., after it pleaded guilty to a price-fixing conspiracy related to high-tech dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. Government investigators are continuing to probe the international cartel that fixed prices for DRAM chips, a key component in computers and other electronics.

A separate probe into the concrete industry in the U.S. Midwest has resulted in fines so far of over $35 million after five companies and 10 executives pleaded guilty to, or were convicted of, conspiring to fix the price of ready-mixed concrete.

The government said it also secured guilty pleas or convictions against price-fixing cartels and bid-rigging conspiracies across a number of industries in 2006, including rubber chemicals, hydrogen peroxide and sodium perborates, gas pipeline construction and even marine fenders supplied to the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard.