WASHINGTON, D.C. - An Amarillo, Texas, wholesale plumbing supply company was charged today by the Department of Justice with fixing prices of wholesale plumbing supplies. This is the fifth case brought as a result of the Department's Antitrust Division's ongoing investigation into the wholesale plumbing supply industry in Amarillo, Texas.

Fields & Company of Amarillo Inc. was charged in U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas, with conspiring with others, from September 1989 until December 1991, to raise, fix, and maintain prices of wholesale plumbing supplies sold from their places of business in Amarillo, Texas.

Anne K. Bingaman, Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Antitrust Division, said today's charge resulted from an ongoing grand jury investigation in Fort Worth, Texas, of suspected price fixing within the wholesale plumbing supply industry.

The investigation is being conducted by the Antitrust Division's Dallas Field Office with the assistance of the Amarillo Office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The maximum penalty for a corporation convicted of a Sherman Act violation occurring after November 16, 1990, is the greatest of $10 million, twice the gross pecuniary gain the defendant derived from the offense, or twice the gross pecuniary loss caused to the victims of the crime.

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