Tosh handed $87 MILLION fine in LCD price fixing case
Japanese electronics firm vows to fight verdict
Posted in Management, 4th July 2012 09:13 GMT
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Japanese electronics giant Toshiba has come out fighting after becoming the latest big name to be found guilty of a widespread price-fixing racket relating to liquid crystal display (LCD) panels sold in the US.
The company has now been ordered by a northern California court to pay $87m in damages – $70m to consumers who bought its products, and $17m to affected manufacturers, according to Reuters.
However, Toshiba will be fighting the jury’s verdict and released a statement saying it will seek “all available legal avenues” to do so.
The case has been dragging on now for the best part of six years, as a host of big name electronics firms were accused of artificially inflating prices.
In December 2011, Samsung, Sharp and six others agreed to pay $388m to settle with OEMs and soon after seven more LCD makers including Samsung, Hitachi and Epson Imaging offered $553m to settle the charges.
In March, Taiwanese firm AU Optronics was found guilty of violating US anti-trust laws but, like Toshiba, said it would appeal.
The verdict against Toshiba is the result of a civil class action suit brought by customers because US prosecutors did not indict the Japanese firm, despite going after others in the cartel.
"There was strong evidence that Toshiba participated in the price-fixing conspiracy through communications with other TFT-LCD manufacturers, and that it received future pricing information from its competitors, shared its own future information, and was aware of its wrongdoing," said Bruce Simon, co-lead counsel for plaintiffs.
"We are grateful for the jury's service. The jury rejected Toshiba's claim that it had done nothing wrong, and this is one of the few antitrust class actions ever tried to a successful verdict." ®
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COMMENTS
They shouldn't waste their time appealing.
They're political fines to encourage investment in the US. It's nothing to do with fairness. It's to encourage inward investment.
They should have worked out by now, that if they want to make big money in a country, they have to employ staff there. The Chinese recently decided that a car that was basically a clone of the BMW X5, bore no resemblance. It was on Top Gear. Surely someone's learned something from that.
All countries do it. Toyota have worked it out. When faced with prosecution over brakes, they could easily have offered publically to maintain a register of faulty vehicles, but this would have been dominated by non Toyota cars, mostly US and European, and they'd have been murdered by the government for being so cheeky. Instead, they offered a sincere apology, and paid the protection money, er, "inward investment to show partnership" so the government would take the heat off.
What's the matter with companies? Are their management stupid? All countries do this. They have to, otherwise they'd be overran by the technically more advanced. You can't blame the country, the elected have to keep the electorate happy. Simply saying "Well, what do you expect? Your cars/monitors/entity of choice are crap compared to those of Japan/China/Country of choice. You deserve to be unemployed." doesn't get a politician re-elected. Engineering foreign companies' assistance in helping the locals does.
Every country does it.
In December 2011, Samsung, Sharp and six others agreed to pay $388m to settle with OEMs and soon after seven more LCD makers including Samsung, Hitachi and Epson Imaging offered $553m to settle the charges.
Looks like the OEMs get all the money (extra [profits for them) and the general public will get nothing at all. The OEMs where there consumers and not the likes of you and me :(
Re: How...
Yes! I bought a LED tv in 2007 for a whopping 1.6k, so if this was fixed, can I get a refund of the difference? (Something like 1.2k's worth...)?
Its anti profit....
....to compete with a competitor; therefor anti business.
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