Another LCD Maker Pleads Guilty to LCD Price Fixing

From DailyTech: The LCD market has been rife with fraud and price fixing over the last year. Some of the world's largest LCD makers have been embroiled in price fixing scandals in the TFT-LCD industry for PCs.

In November of 2008, Sharp, LG, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes all pled guilty to price fixing and paid fines totaling $548 million to the U.S. Justice Department. The price fixing scheme ultimately ended with some of the executives involved going to prison here in America. This month Nokia announced that it too was filing suit against some of the same companies for alleged price fixing in the mobile phone industry.

Nokia alleged in its suit, "[The] illegal conspiracy raised the price of LCDs above the price that would have prevailed in a competitive market."

The price fixing scandal isn't over yet it seems; eWeek reports that another LCD maker has pled guilty to price fixing in the TFT-LCD market with HP, Apple, and Dell all having purchased the LCDs from the company. The LCD maker in question this time around was Chi Mei Optoelectronics from Taiwan. The company has been fined $220 million for its part in the scheme by the DOJ.

EWeek quotes a DOJ statement saying, "According to a one-count felony charge ... Chi Mei Optoelectronics participated in a conspiracy to fix the prices of TFT [thin-film transistor]-LCD panels sold worldwide from Sept. 14, 2001, to Dec. 1, 2006. ... Companies directly affected by the LCD price-fixing conspiracy are some of the largest computer and television manufacturers in the world, including Apple, Dell and HP [Hewlett-Packard]."

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