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3 Firms Confess To Fixing LCD Prices, Agree To Pay $585M Fine

Posted by timothy on from the win-friends-and-influence-people dept.

Oldyeller89 writes "LG, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes pleaded guilty to charges of price fixing in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. They fixed the prices on LCD screens used not only in their products but also in other products such as Apple's iPods. The three companies agreed to pay $585 million in fines. Perhaps this will cause the price of our TVs to drop?" The New York Times also has a story on the outcome of this case.

5 of 417 comments (clear)

  1. Plasma? by riceboy50 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I wonder if the price to produce a plasma television is just inherently much higher than LCD if the already generally lower prices on those were being fixed in many cases.

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    1. Re:Plasma? by rtb61 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The biggest advantage for LCD's is shipping. You can simply deliver a whole lot more LCD's in the same shipping space as CRT, in fact four or more times as many. Check the cost of international deliveries of bulky items and that saves the bulk of the money. Obviously the price fixing on LCDs was simply to keep the plasma screen production plants running for as long as possible. Looks like plasma screens will follow CRT's into history in the not too distant future.

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  2. Lol... by ZekoMal · · Score: 3, Interesting

    And so, now that we have found out they have fixed prices, we can all feel free to sit with thumbs up our asses about the jacked prices we had to pay to feed companies that agree to pay a fine that is higher than the average amount of money 5 families make in a lifetime.

    And $50 says the CEO's won't be taking a dip in their salaries to compensate for the fine; nope, chances are they'll lay off some people and give pay cuts out to everyone that just does their job without trying to find a way to make a quick buck.

  3. Is this related? by blair1q · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Does this have anything to do with the ridiculous inability of the laptop LCD screen market to put out 1920x1080 screens?

    It's as though they're keeping the market for TV screens expensive by not allowing the format to bleed into laptop realm, wherupon cheap computers become high-quality televisions, killing the TV screen market.

  4. Re:No price drop for you! by Prof+Dodecahedron · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Maybe they should fine the board members instead, and disallow them from receiving bonuses/stock/pay increases for 5 or 10 years. You can't punish companies but you can punish people.