Toshiba Corp. (6502.TO) said Tuesday a 51%-owned joint venture has received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice regarding an investigation related to its optical disk drive business.

However Toshiba declined to say specifically what matter the DOJ is investigating.

The company's comments came after the Nikkei reported in its Tuesday morning edition that the U.S. justice department is investigating possible antitrust violations by the American optical disk drive operations of Toshiba Corp., Hitachi Ltd. (6501.TO) and Sony Corp. (6758.TO).

The Justice Department has ordered Toshiba Samsung Storage Technology Corp. - a joint venture with South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. (005930.SE) - and Hitachi-LG Data Storage Inc. to provide information, while Sony Optiarc America Inc. has also been asked to cooperate, the newspaper reported.

"Our joint venture (with Samsung) will be cooperating with the investigation," a Toshiba spokesman said.

-By Ayai Tomisawa, Dow Jones Newswires; 813-6895-7568; ayai.tomisawa@dowjones.com