Taiwanese flat-panel maker AU Optronics Corp’s (AUO, 友達光電) trial on price-fixing charges is scheduled to begin in the US early next month, sources close to the case said on Wednesday.
After more than a year of investigation and negotiations, the US District Court for the Northern District of California has decided to start hearing the anti-trust case on Jan. 9.
AUO, which has repeatedly denied any involvement and has vowed not to plead guilty, declined to comment, as the case is now in the judicial process.
AUO, a subsidiary in Houston, Texas, and six of its former and present senior executives, were indicted by the US Department of Justice in June last year on allegations that the company conspired to fix flat screen prices with other industry rivals in Asia between September 2001 and December 2006.
Three of the six indicated AUO executives — Chen Hsuan-bin (陳炫彬), Chen Lai-juh (陳來助) and Hsiung Hui (熊暉) — have been barred from leaving the US since August last year following a hearing in which they pleaded their case. Prosecutors said there was a flight risk because all three live and work in Taiwan, which has no extradition agreement with the US.
The three are not allowed to travel outside the US without the permission of the US Pretrial Services Agency, but are allowed to move around the country and carry out their duties in Taiwan via teleconference.
The sources said that after the order barring the three executives from leaving the US, AUO and the Justice Department launched negotiations. The talks failed to yield any consensus and department decided to go to trial, the sources said.
Other Asian manufacturers, including Taiwan’s Chmei Innolux Corp (奇美電子) and Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd (中華映管), South Korea’s LG Display Co and Japan’s Sharp Corp are among those that have already pleaded guilty through plea bargains with prosecutors and have agreed to pay massive fines and damages.
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”
Sales in the retail, and food and beverage sectors last month continued to rise, increasing 0.7 percent and 13.6 percent respectively from a year earlier, setting record highs for the month of March, the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday. Sales in the wholesale sector also grew last month by 4.6 annually, mainly due to the business opportunities for emerging applications related to artificial intelligence (AI) and high-performance computing technologies, the ministry said in a report. The ministry forecast that retail, and food and beverage sales this month would retain their growth momentum as the former would benefit from Tomb Sweeping Day
Thousands of parents in Singapore are furious after a Cordlife Group Ltd (康盛人生集團), a major operator of cord blood banks in Asia, irreparably damaged their children’s samples through improper handling, with some now pursuing legal action. The ongoing case, one of the worst to hit the largely untested industry, has renewed concerns over companies marketing themselves to anxious parents with mostly unproven assurances. This has implications across the region, given Cordlife’s operations in Hong Kong, Macau, Indonesia, the Philippines and India. The parents paid for years to have their infants’ cord blood stored, with the understanding that the stem cells they contained