Friday January 16, 02:14 AM
South Korean, Taiwan executives to be jailed for price-fixing
By Chris Lefkow
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Three senior electronics executives from Taiwan and one from South Korea have agreed to serve terms in a US prison for their roles in a price-fixing conspiracy, according to the Justice Department.
The executives with Chunghwa Picture Tubes Ltd. and LG Display Co. Ltd. agreed to serve prison terms ranging from six to nine months and pay criminal fines of between 20,000 and 50,000 dollars, the department said in a statement.
The fines and prison sentences came in a plea agreement under which the four agreed to plead guilty to a global conspiracy to fix prices of liquid crystal display (LCD) panels used in televisions, computers and other devices.
The plea agreements, which remain subject to the approval of a US District Court in San Francisco, come two months after the Justice Department imposed fines totaling 585 million dollars on LG (003550.KS - news) , Chunghwa and Sharp Corp. of Japan.
Chang Suk Chung, a South Korean who was vice president of monitor sales at LG at the time of the conspiracy, agreed to serve seven months in prison and pay a 25,000 dollar fine.
Chieng-Hon Lin, who holds dual Taiwan-US nationality and was Chunghwa's former chairman and chief executive, agreed to serve nine months in prison and pay a 50,000 dollar fine.
Chih-Chun Liu, another Taiwan national and Chunghwa's former vice president of LCD sales, agreed to serve seven months in prison and pay a 30,000 dollar fine.
Hsueh-Lung Lee, also a national of Taiwan and a former vice president of LCD sales at Chunghwa, agreed to serve six months in prison and pay a 20,000-dollar fine.
According to the Justice Department they conspired with unnamed employees from other LCD panel-makers "to suppress and eliminate competition" by fixing prices.
"These cases involve the first Taiwanese nationals to face imprisonment in the United States for an antitrust offense," said Deborah Garza, acting assistant attorney general in charge of the Antitrust Division.
"The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable all conspirators who harm American consumers (ANCS.PK - news) , no matter where they live or where they commit the crime," she added.
Besides agreeing to prison terms and fines, the Justice Department said the four agreed to cooperate with the ongoing investigation into price-fixing.
"These are the first individuals to plead guilty to a charge of fixing prices in this active investigation into antitrust violations," said Scott Hammond, deputy assistant attorney general in the Antitrust Division.
"We will continue in our efforts to bring to justice other domestic and foreign-based executives who were involved with fixing (LCD) prices."
The Justice Department announced November 12 that LG Display, formerly known as LG Philips LCD Co (034220.KS - news) . Ltd, had agreed to plead guilty to price-fixing and pay a fine of 400 million dollars, the second-largest in Antitrust Division history.
Taiwan's Chunghwa was fined 65 million dollars while Japan's Sharp Corp. agreed to pay a 120-million-dollar fine.
The four executives could have faced a maximum fine of one million dollars and up to 10 years in prison.
According to the Justice Department, LG Display engaged in price-fixing between 2001 and 2006 involving LCD panels sold worldwide.
It said Sharp was involved in price-fixing during the same period for LCDs sold to Dell (NASDAQ: DELL - news) for its computer monitors and laptops, Motorola (NYSE: MOT - news) for its Razr mobile phones, and Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL - news) for its iPod portable music player.
Chunghwa was accused of fixing the prices of LCD panels sold worldwide from 2001 to 2006.
The companies held meetings and exchanged information to reach agreement on price quotations, according to the Justice Department.
The fine levied on LG Display is the second-largest after the record antitrust fine of 500 million dollars handed down against Swiss pharmaceutical giant F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. in 1999 for fixing vitamin prices.
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