(Corrects mismatch of fines in second paragraph)
SINGAPORE, May 26 (Reuters) - Singapore's anti-trust regulator fined three Japanese manufacturers S$9.3 million ($7.42 million) on Tuesday for taking part in a ball bearing pricing cartel, the latest move in a global investigation of price-fixing by car parts makers.
The Competition Commission of Singapore (CCS) fined Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp S$7.6 million, the largest fine the regulator has ever levied. NSK Ltd and NTN Corp were given smaller fines of S$1.3 million and S$455,652 respectively.
Anti-trust regulators in Europe, the United States, Japan, and Canada among others have also been investigating anti-competitive behaviour by car parts makers.
The Singapore ruling follows a previous case against NTN, NSK Ltd, and Nachi-Fujikoshi Corp, brought in March by the European Union's Competition Commission. That case saw NTN fined 201.35 million euros ($274.87 million), NSK fined 62.4 million euros and Nachi-Fujikoshi fined 3.96 million euros.
According to Singapore's antitrust watchdog, the four Japanese companies had been meeting regularly in Japan since 1980 to fix prices in order to maintain their market share and protect their profits.
CCS was alerted to the price-fixing after receiving an application by Koyo Singapore Bearing Ptd Ltd, a subsidiary of Japan's JTEKT Corp, under its leniency programme, which grants partial or full immunity from financial penalties to the applicant.
"The infringing conduct was a secretive and sophisticated cartel where the participants engaged in covert conduct, including referring to each participant by code names, unlike previous CCS price-fixing cartels," the commission said in a statement.
The sanctions also mark the first time the watchdog has taken on companies based outside of Singapore.
Calls to the Singapore subsidiaries of NSK and NTN went unanswered on Tuesday. Nachi Singapore's management could not be reached for comment, while officials at Koyo said the company was unaware of the ruling.
Lawyers said Singapore's CCS, which was established in 2005, is starting to ratchet up its enforcement policy and take on bigger cases.
"Clearly the honeymoon period is over and they will want to crackdown on any such cartels which come to their attention" said Ken Chia, a lawyer with Baker and McKenzie. "This is the first case involving a foreign cartel, but we expect more soon".
($1 = 1.2530 Singapore dollars)
($1 = 0.7325 euros) (Reporting by Andrew Toh; Editing by Matt Driskill)