By Grant Gross Nov 12, 2008
Three electronics manufacturers -- LG Display, Sharp and Chunghwa Picture Tubes -- have agreed to plead guilty and pay a combined US$585 million in criminal fines for conspiring to fix the prices of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday. LG will pay $400 million of the fines, which is the second-highest fine ever imposed by the DOJ's Antitrust Division, the DOJ said. The DOJ filed the price-fixing charges in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in San Francisco Wednesday. The companies, in agreeing to settle the charges, also agreed to cooperate with the DOJ's ongoing antitrust investigation. Thin-Film Transistor LCD panels are used in computer monitors and laptops, television sets, mobile phones, and other electronic devices. In 2006, the worldwide market for TFT-LCD panels was approximately $70 billion, the DOJ said. Companies directly affected by the LCD price-fixing conspiracies are some of the largest computer, television and cellular telephone manufacturers in the world, including Apple, Dell and Motorola, the DOJ said in a press release.
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