Seoul’s antitrust agency said yesterday it had fined 10 of the world’s leading flat panel makers in Taiwan and South Korea a total of 194 billion won (US$175 million) for price fixing.
Firms, including AU Optronics Corp (友達光電) and Chimei Innolux Corp (奇美電子) from Taiwan, and Samsung Electronics and LG Display in South Korea colluded from 2001 to 2006 to control prices of panels for computers and televisions, the South Korean Fair Trade Commission said.
“They colluded on minimum prices of panels, pricing policies on each product type, timing of price increases and a ban on cash rebates,” the commission said in a statement.
The offenders also included Taiwanese and Japanese units of both Samsung Electronics and LG Display, as well as Taiwan’s Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管) and HannStar Display Crop (瀚宇彩晶), it said.
Officials from the firms involved held about 200 secret meetings over six years to agree on cutting or suspending production to prevent prices from falling and to exchange confidential information such as sales plans, it said.
“They were aware that such action was illegal and kept their gatherings and information secret,” the statement said.
The firms have a combined 80 percent share in the global LCD market, the commission said, adding that the cartel hurt consumers by increasing prices of computers, laptops and televisions.
Samsung Electronics, the world’s top flat-screen maker, and its overseas units were slapped with the heaviest fine of 97.2 billion won, followed by 65.5 billion won for LG Display and its foreign affiliates.
The fines by the commission — the largest it has ever imposed for a case of international price fixing — came three years after several major Asian LCD makers, including LG, were fined after a similar US probe.
In December last year, the European Commission also fined six Asian makers of LCD screens a total of 649 million euros (US$860 million at the time) for operating for almost five years as a cartel.
Samsung said it respected the regulator’s decision and would abide by it.
However, LG Display said it opposed the ruling and would appeal to the Seoul court to reduce the fine on the grounds that it had fully cooperated with the investigation.
Taiwanese suppliers to Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC, 台積電) are expected to follow the contract chipmaker’s step to invest in the US, but their relocation may be seven to eight years away, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. When asked by opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) in the legislature about growing concerns that TSMC’s huge investments in the US will prompt its suppliers to follow suit, Kuo said based on the chipmaker’s current limited production volume, it is unlikely to lead its supply chain to go there for now. “Unless TSMC completes its planned six
Power supply and electronic components maker Delta Electronics Inc (台達電) yesterday said second-quarter revenue is expected to surpass the first quarter, which rose 30 percent year-on-year to NT$118.92 billion (US$3.71 billion). Revenue this quarter is likely to grow, as US clients have front-loaded orders ahead of US President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs on Taiwanese goods, Delta chairman Ping Cheng (鄭平) said at an earnings conference in Taipei, referring to the 90-day pause in tariff implementation Trump announced on April 9. While situations in the third and fourth quarters remain unclear, “We will not halt our long-term deployments and do not plan to
‘SHORT TERM’: The local currency would likely remain strong in the near term, driven by anticipated US trade pressure, capital inflows and expectations of a US Fed rate cut The US dollar is expected to fall below NT$30 in the near term, as traders anticipate increased pressure from Washington for Taiwan to allow the New Taiwan dollar to appreciate, Cathay United Bank (國泰世華銀行) chief economist Lin Chi-chao (林啟超) said. Following a sharp drop in the greenback against the NT dollar on Friday, Lin told the Central News Agency that the local currency is likely to remain strong in the short term, driven in part by market psychology surrounding anticipated US policy pressure. On Friday, the US dollar fell NT$0.953, or 3.07 percent, closing at NT$31.064 — its lowest level since Jan.
The New Taiwan dollar and Taiwanese stocks surged on signs that trade tensions between the world’s top two economies might start easing and as US tech earnings boosted the outlook of the nation’s semiconductor exports. The NT dollar strengthened as much as 3.8 percent versus the US dollar to 30.815, the biggest intraday gain since January 2011, closing at NT$31.064. The benchmark TAIEX jumped 2.73 percent to outperform the region’s equity gauges. Outlook for global trade improved after China said it is assessing possible trade talks with the US, providing a boost for the nation’s currency and shares. As the NT dollar