16 Nov
LCD makers express regret over U.S. price-fixing fines
by Dan Nystedt, Macworld.com
Asian LCD makers fined by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) expressed regret above the price-fixing schemes that led to US$585 million in fines.
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The companies, Sharp of Japan, LG Display of South Korea and Chunghwa Picture Tubes of Taiwan, make an allegation guilty to fixing prices on LCD (liquid crystal pageant) panels, the most expensive part of the screens on computer monitors, laptops, LCD-TVs and mobile phones.
Sharp pledged to be in action to regain public trust and implement measures to insure against a recurrence of any one kind of similar issue. In a statement, the company said its chairman and CEO, lengthwise with some directors pledged to return 10 percent to 30 percent of their remuneration for the December quarter to ease anxiety among company shareholders.
The DOJ fined Sharp US$120 million.
Chunghwa Picture Tubes will continue working with the DOJ in continuance its LCD perseverance investigation, it said in a statement. The company said it had already set aside funds in the event it settled with the DOJ in this case so the $65 million it was fined will not contact its financial situation.
The DOJ investigation started in far advanced 2006.
LG Display said it cooperated by the DOJ throughout the investigation and has put in place a new compliance program while a end of the penalty.
“We don’t expect this kind of thing to continually happen again,” said Bang-Soo Lee, vice president of public relations at LG Display.
LG Display’s fine was the largest fine among the three LCD makers, $400 the great body of the people, and the second-highest criminal fine ever imposed by the DOJ’s Antitrust Division. Lee said the size of the fine is in proportion to the company’s revenue. Since LG Display sells more LCD panels than Sharp or Chunghwa Picture Tubes, it faced a heavier payout.
The company will pay the gay through the whole extent of a five-year period, he said, so it will not bear an immediate pack close on its financial results.
The three LCD array makers agreed to pay a sum total of US$585 million in fines as antidote to price-fixing and pledged to cooperate in the DOJ’s continuing antitrust investigation into LCD price-fixing.
The companies also face investigations by regulators in Japan and the European Union.
The DOJ penalty couldn’t come at a worse time for the companies. A glut of LCD panels globally has depressed prices and the global financial crisis is hurting demand for a rank of items LCD panels are used in, including the screens of computer monitors, laptops, LCD-TVs and mobile phones.
The DOJ said U.S. consumers who buy mobile phones, computers and other household electronics have been greatest in quantity affected by the price-fixing plot, while affected companies include Apple, Dell and Motorola.
The LCD makers fixed prices from a time period between April, 2001 to near the end of 2006, according to the DOJ.
(Martyn Williams in Tokyo contributed to this story.)
