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.
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) last week recorded an increase in the number of shareholders to the highest in almost eight months, despite its share price falling 3.38 percent from the previous week, Taiwan Stock Exchange data released on Saturday showed. As of Friday, TSMC had 1.88 million shareholders, the most since the week of April 25 and an increase of 31,870 from the previous week, the data showed. The number of shareholders jumped despite a drop of NT$50 (US$1.59), or 3.38 percent, in TSMC’s share price from a week earlier to NT$1,430, as investors took profits from their earlier gains
In a high-security Shenzhen laboratory, Chinese scientists have built what Washington has spent years trying to prevent: a prototype of a machine capable of producing the cutting-edge semiconductor chips that power artificial intelligence (AI), smartphones and weapons central to Western military dominance, Reuters has learned. Completed early this year and undergoing testing, the prototype fills nearly an entire factory floor. It was built by a team of former engineers from Dutch semiconductor giant ASML who reverse-engineered the company’s extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) machines, according to two people with knowledge of the project. EUV machines sit at the heart of a technological Cold
TAIWAN VALUE CHAIN: Foxtron is to fully own Luxgen following the transaction and it plans to launch a new electric model, the Foxtron Bria, in Taiwan next year Yulon Motor Co (裕隆汽車) yesterday said that its board of directors approved the disposal of its electric vehicle (EV) unit, Luxgen Motor Co (納智捷汽車), to Foxtron Vehicle Technologies Co (鴻華先進) for NT$787.6 million (US$24.98 million). Foxtron, a half-half joint venture between Yulon affiliate Hua-Chuang Automobile Information Technical Center Co (華創車電) and Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密), expects to wrap up the deal in the first quarter of next year. Foxtron would fully own Luxgen following the transaction, including five car distributing companies, outlets and all employees. The deal is subject to the approval of the Fair Trade Commission, Foxtron said. “Foxtron will be
INFLATION CONSIDERATION: The BOJ governor said that it would ‘keep making appropriate decisions’ and would adjust depending on the economy and prices The Bank of Japan (BOJ) yesterday raised its benchmark interest rate to the highest in 30 years and said more increases are in the pipeline if conditions allow, in a sign of growing conviction that it can attain the stable inflation target it has pursued for more than a decade. Bank of Japan Governor Kazuo Ueda’s policy board increased the rate by 0.2 percentage points to 0.75 percent, in a unanimous decision, the bank said in a statement. The central bank cited the rising likelihood of its economic outlook being realized. The rate change was expected by all 50 economists surveyed by Bloomberg. The
RSS