LG, Sharp plead guilty to LCD price-fixing, take $585m fine
by Nilay Patel 
posted Nov 12th 2008 at 3:37PM
Allegations of LCD price-fixing have been swirling around for years now, and it looks like at least some of the companies involved have dirt on their hands -- LG, Sharp and Chunghwa Picture Tubes have all just pled guilty to price-fixing in a case filed by the US Department of Justice and will pay a combined $585m fine. LG's taking the biggest hit at $400m for conspiring to fix prices from September 2001 to June 2006, while Sharp's on the hook for $120m for jacking prices on panels sold to Dell, Motorola and Apple during the same time frame. Naughty, naughty. It also sounds like this plea agreement is more than just a sterile attempt to cut losses -- Sharp's exec staff is taking a 10 to 30 percent pay cut for three months as punishment to reassure its shareholders. Sounds like a plan -- how about refunding some of that cash to us chumps out here buying your overpriced products?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jon @ Nov 12th 2008 8:16PM
Executives getting hit in the pocketbooks for bad decisions? What a concept! Hey, Wall Street, are you listening?
GhostDoggy @ Nov 13th 2008 7:49AM
I wonder how much the profited (net profit) on the sales for which these fines are based upon.
clara @ Nov 13th 2008 7:03PM
Did any of that money go to the consumers or businesses that bought the items?
eric mccormick @ Nov 13th 2008 9:59AM
I wonder when the prices of LCD's will come down, spcially with OLEDs around the corner and they will be printed dirt cheap but then probably sold at a 1000 times more then they are worth because of the high MSRP of LEDs