A Chi Mei Optoelectronics Corp (奇美電子) sales director agreed to plead guilty to conspiring to fix prices of LCDs sold in the US and elsewhere from 2004 to 2006, US prosecutors said.
Yang Chu-hsiang, also known as James Yang, his employer and co-conspirators participated in meetings and conversations in Taiwan, South Korea and the US to charge prices for LCD panels at certain predetermined levels, according to a charging document filed on Friday in federal court in San Francisco.
Niall Lynch, an attorney for the Justice Department’s antitrust division, said in a filing on Friday in a separate civil antitrust lawsuit against LCD makers that Yang had agreed to plead guilty.
Chi Mei in December pleaded guilty in a US probe on LCD price fixing and agreed to pay US$220 million in fines.
The federal investigation has led to more than US$860 million in fines for LCD makers.
Chi Mei merged with Innolux Display Corp (群創光電) last month to form Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子), Taiwan’s biggest maker of LCDs used in televisions, computers and mobile phones.
E.Sun Financial Holding Co (玉山金控) is to formally merge with Mercuries Life Insurance Co (三商美邦人壽) on Sept. 1, creating Taiwan’s fifth-largest listed financial holding company by assets and paving the way for capital injections totaling NT$22 billion (US$683.91 million) to shore up the insurer’s finances, top executives said yesterday. “The first priority after the merger will be to bring the insurer back to health through capital injections,” E.Sun Financial chairman Joseph Huang (黃男州) told a news conference in Taipei ahead of a company earnings call. E.Sun would inject NT$16 billion into Mercuries Life next month, followed by another NT$6 billion next year,
RIVAL BLOCS: Kazakhstan has signed on to the US’ and China’s AI frameworks; a US official said it was difficult to see how a country can be trusted while in a competing pact The US is preparing to tell dozens of countries they must pick sides in the artificial intelligence (AI) race with China, warning they would be excluded from a US-led AI coalition if they also sign up for Beijing’s competing framework, according to a US official and an internal draft reviewed by Reuters. Washington last year launched the Pax Silica initiative aimed at securing supply chains for AI models, semiconductors and critical minerals, amid a fierce technology rivalry with Beijing. About two dozen countries have joined, including Kazakhstan, a key potential source of critical minerals that has also joined China’s coalition,
Taiwan and other technology democracies have a "golden but narrowing" three-to-five-year window to lay the foundations for an advanced robotics supply chain outside China, particularly for humanoid robots, a Taiwan-based researcher said yesterday. A report released on Monday by the Research Institute for Democracy, Society and Emerging Technology (DSET) examines China-West competition in physical artificial intelligence (AI) and Taiwan’s potential role in developing alternatives to Chinese robot supply chains. Humanoid robots remain unproven, meaning China’s lead in shipments currently has a limited impact on the real economy, Nathanael Cheng (鄭秉信), a policy analyst in the DSET Economic Security Program, said in a
E-PAPER TRANSITION: Increasing memory prices have caused customers to postpone new product launches, with the firm expecting a later peak season this year E Ink Holdings Inc (元太科技), the world’s biggest e-paper display supplier, yesterday revised downward its revenue growth forecast for this year to between 10 and 15 percent, from the 20 to 25 percent it previously estimated, as surging memory prices are hurting demand for its e-readers and e-notes. The company had expected a transition from monochrome color e-paper displays to color displays used in e-readers and e-notes to continue this year. However, rapidly increasing memory prices have caused customers to postpone new product launches, while demand for models from previous generations has also dwindled due to higher prices, E Ink said. That created
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