Court fines Friend Tire $100,000

Aug. 2, 2001

Yokohama Tire Corp. subsidiary Friend Tire Co. Inc. of Monett, Mo., has been ordered to pay $100,000 in criminal fines for failure to file federal excise tax returns related to the import and re-sale of nearly 5,000 commercial truck tires from Canada six years ago.

The fine was handed down by a judge in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Missouri, who declined to impose a term of corporate probation.

Friend has until Monday, Aug. 6, to pay up.

In February, the company pleaded guilty to four misdemeanor counts of failure to file federal excise tax returns.