Hitachi-LG Fined $21M For Price-Fixing Optical Drives

Posted by Soulskill on Monday October 3, 2011 @07:30AM from the hand-in-the-cookie-jar dept.

wiredmikey writes "Hitachi-LG Data Storage, a joint venture between Hitachi and LG Electronics, has agreed to plead guilty and to pay a $21.1 million criminal fine for its part in a scheme to rig bids and fix prices of optical disk drives. According to the Department of Justice, the company had conspired with others to rig the bidding process on optical disk drives sold to Dell, HP, and Microsoft. Court documents show that Dell and HP hosted optical disk drive procurement events in which bidders would be awarded varying amounts of optical disk drive supply depending on where their pricing ranked."

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Free Market capitalism by Anonymous Coward · 2011-10-03 07:37 · Score: -1, Flamebait

I thought the United States loved their free market capitalism? Where is the freedom here? Companies should be able to combine into cartels and push the consumers around, after all this is the will of the free market right?