Source: Tom's Guide US | Keywords: LG, Chunghwa, LCD, HDTV, Television | Themes: Digital Entertainment, Display Panels and Monitors
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, several executives from LG and Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) have agreed to serve prison time and pay fines in relation to a global LCD price fixing scandal.
In a statement released last week, the DOJ announced that four high level executives from the Korea and Taiwan based electronics companies will serve time in American prisons for "participating in a global conspiracy to fix prices in the sale of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Display (TFT-LCD) panels."
C.S. Chung, a Korean citizen and former VP of Monitor Sales for LG, will spend seven months in a U.S. prison and pay a $25,000 fine. The remaining conspirators are all former CPT employees U.S. citizen and former Chairman and CEO Chieng-Hon Lin, VP of LCD Sales Chih-Chun Liu, and Salesman/former VP of LCD Sales Hsueh-Lung Lee, all of whom are Taiwanese citizens, will serve prison sentences ranging from six months to nine months and pay fines ranging from $25,000 to $50,000.
According to the DOJ, the four former executives were charged under the Sherman Act, which carries "a maximum fine of $1 million and up to 10 years in prison." Fines stemming from convictions under the Sherman Act are tied to financial gains made by the convicted or monetary losses of the victims.
"These are the first individuals to plead guilty to a charge of fixing prices in this active investigation into antitrust violations in the TFT-LCD industry," said Scott D. Hammond, the Antitrust Division’s Deputy Assistant Attorney General for Criminal Enforcement. "We will continue in our efforts to bring to justice other domestic and foreign-based executives who were involved with fixing TFT-LCD prices."
While these four men represent the first convictions regarding LCD price fixing,they do not represent the first criminal punishment. Last month, both Sharp and LG plead guilty to conspiracy in regards to LCD price fixing, and both companies were forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in criminal fines. Earlier this month, Chunghwa also plead guilty to conspiracy and was handed a $65 million fine.
Read the official DOJ press release here.
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Is this going to be a semi yearly thing or what? Last year is was ATI and Nvidia now we are just adding to the list...
So where does all the fine money go - who gets it?
Somewhere along the line I would hope this means lower LCD prices. Right?
I wish the people who had bought the over-pricced monitors would get the money. Instead it will go to the government. Another back-door tax.
LOL, they should have hired Wall Street lawyers. Price fixing to boost profit is punished by prison terms. Conning millions of people out of life savings is punished by free government money.
a million lawyers and peons are going to divy up the cash. A large hunk of it will be "taxed" out and most likely end up in the wallet of a major Californian Senator or someone who pays attention to this sorta thing. They'll either invest it right back into the company under a deal, use it to fund some private venture of their own, or just play golf for the rest of their life once they retire.
Us normal people won't see a cent. LCD prices will probably stay the same or close to it until the market floods over and newer technology [OLCDs] replace it.
If you want free money, go into politics.
Well all the fines goto the USA ONLY all the rest of the world will have to pay for that, the USA should play fair and SHARE! Either that or the rest of the world should pass laws requiring the US pay a share of each fine to them, if they don't maybe any US citizen found could just be locked up for the failure of their government to play fair.
One rule for one, one for another................
Well the good old USA dose it again, all the money going to the USA, why not share as the rest of the world will end up paying. Maybe every country in the world should pass a bill like the sherman, maybe to tackle the USA based SPAM kings, how can the Americans pass a bill to "legalise" spamming of users throughout the world and yet not take action. My bill would go like this;
Hey American ISP, you provide an internet connection to a spammer who directly or indirectly used it to send or cause me to be spammed. Give me $10,000 or you goto prison in (let me think) Afghanistan, and you can make your own way home afterwards.
That one would get my vote, but to be serious the Americans are hypocrites, as long as it's not in their back yard or affecting the price/supply of oil they don't give a toss.
If I where them I'd use the defence that I did it because I don't like them, not to rip them off.
One rule for one, one for another................
There is nothing preventing other countries from conducting their own investigations and imposing their own fines/sentences. And, actually, they can use the US court case(s) as a basis for their trials and have most of the work done for them.