Justice Department investigates Royal
WOODBRIDGE, ONTARIO - The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating Royal Group Technologies Ltd. regarding allegations of price-fixing on window blinds.
Officials of the Canadian company discussed the investigation in an April 4 filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
``[Royal] is cooperating with the Department of Justice and is attempting to negotiate a resolution in the matter,'' the filing said.
Spokesman Mark Badger said by telephone April 5 that the Woodbridge-based profile extruder cannot speculate on timing or outcome of that resolution.
In November, Royal Group Technologies (Quebec) Inc. agreed to pay C$200,000 (US$166,000) to Canada's federal Competition Bureau for attempting to influence pricing of vertical blinds.
Carroll Sales relocating packaging unit
WESTLAKE, OHIO - Carroll Sales Agency Inc. is relocating its packaging business from Westlake to a bigger facility in Avon, Ohio.
The firm, doing business as Carroll Manufacturing and Sales, makes and distributes food-packaging supplies such as plastic film roll stock, cooking films, shrinkable vacuum packaging and netting. The company plans to build a 70,000-square-foot operation at a cost of more than $5 million, according to the Ohio Tax Credit Authority.
Carroll Sales was awarded a 55 percent tax credit for a five-year term to assist with the project. The credit will be worth about $36,000 over the term and carries the condition that the firm will maintain operations at the site for 10 years.
Nypro shuttering facility in Puerto Rico
CLINTON, MASS. - Nypro Inc. of Clinton is closing a contract assembly facility in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, after the site's major customer, an electronics manufacturer, moved work from the island, company officials said.
Nypro spokesman Al Cotton declined to identify the customer, but a report in the Puerto Rico Herald said the plant is downsizing because Hewlett-Packard Corp. is transferring work to Malaysia.
The Nypro facility employs 170 and will shut down during the next five months, Cotton said. Some of the employees will be offered the chance to transfer to other Nypro facilities on the island or in the Dominican Republic.
The 150,000-square-foot Aguadilla plant does assembly work but has no plastics processing.
Plastics Hall of Fame nominations open
LEOMINSTER, MASS. - The Plastics Academy is accepting nominations for the Plastics Hall of Fame until Dec. 31.
The nominations are for living individuals; separate ceremonies are held for posthumous inductees. A new group will be inducted during NPE 2006 in Chicago.
``Nominations may come from any interested party,'' said John Kretzschmar, chairman of the Plastics Academy. ``Our recently adopted procedures have streamlined the nominating process and increased our ability to identify and honor those who have made the industry great.''
Official nomination forms are available from the Plastics Academy office in Leominster. As many as nine people will be inducted.
The Plastics Hall of Fame is housed in the National Plastics Center in Leominster.
ECL to purchase leased building in Ohio
FINDLAY, OHIO - Teflon processor ECL Plastics Inc. plans to buy the building it is leasing in Findlay.
ECL qualifies for a $110,000 grant from the Ohio Small Cities Community Development agency to buy the 19,000-square-foot building for $430,000. The purchase will help ECL retain 16 jobs and create 10.
Owner Robert Smith said his firm received a notice to vacate the building and decided to buy it instead.
The site is in an economically depressed area and its price is about half what a similar building would command in most markets, he said in a telephone interview.
ECL expects to spend a few hundred thousand dollars to renovate the interior and exterior.