In a plea agreement filed Wednesday, LG Display Co. Ltd., Sharp Corp., and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd., all makers of LCD screens, have agreed to co-operate in a U.S. Justice Department antitrust investigation currently underway. Deputy Assistant Attorney-General Thomas O. Barnett said “These price-fixing conspiracies affected millions of American consumers who use computers, cellphones and numerous other household electronics every day,” Each of the manufacturers have agreed to pay fines, the fine for LG (Korea) and it's American subsidiary amounts to $400 million, Chunghwa (Taiwan) will pay $65 million, while Sharp (Japan) has agreed to $120 million. For it's part Sharp said in a statement that “After carefully taking into consideration the applicable laws and regulations, the facts and other factors, Sharp has decided that the best possible course of action would be to conclude the aforementioned agreement,” The big question now is, will the fines affect the cost of new LCD's? ;-)
Globe and Mail story.
Globe and Mail story.
