Tuesday a California jury found Toshiba guilty of conspiring in price-fixing liquid crystal displays. The lawsuit was brought up against Toshiba and other LCD suppliers earlier in the year that alleged the companies were guilty of anti-competitive practices. Most of the other companies settled out of court but Toshiba, in a move I’m sure they are now kicking themselves over, decided to fight the allegations. Now they must pay $70 million to customers who purchased assorted products and an additional $17 million to manufacturers who used Toshiba’s LCD panels. Bruce L. Simon who served as co-lead council for the plaintiffs had this to say. “There was strong evidence that Toshiba participated in the price-fixing conspiracy through the communications with other TFT-LCD manufacturers, and that it received future pricing information from its competitors, shared its own future information, and was aware of its wrongdoing.” Toshiba claimed they had done nothing wrong but the jury wasn’t having it and this goes down as one of the few antitrust class actions to return a successful verdict. Read the following press releases for more details.

Federal Jury Today Finds Toshiba Participated In Global Conspiracy to Fix Prices of Liquid Crystal Displays

With Trebling of Damages, Verdict Against Toshiba Set At $261 Million And Follows Earlier Settlements of $430 Million in the Antitrust Class Action Litigation

San Francisco, CA – A federal court jury this morning found that Toshiba Corporation and its subsidiaries conspired with the world’s other leading manufacturers of Thin Film Transistor-Liquid Crystal Displays (“TFT-LCDs”) to raise and fix the prices of TFT-LCD panels and certain products. The jury awarded damages of $87 million. Federal antitrust law requires the trebling of these damages, resulting in a $261 million award against Toshiba.

Richard M. Heimann, co-lead trial counsel for plaintiffs, stated, “We are very pleased the jury found in favor of the plaintiffs and found that Toshiba violated the law, particularly in light of the government’s decision not to criminally prosecute Toshiba for its misconduct. The case demonstrates once again the critical role our civil justice system plays in holding corporations, no matter how powerful or where they are based in the world, accountable for violating U.S. antitrust laws.”

“There was strong evidence that Toshiba participated in the price-fixing conspiracy through communications with other TFT-LCD manufacturers, and that it received future pricing information from its competitors, shared its own future information, and was aware of its wrongdoing,” stated Bruce L. Simon, co-lead counsel for plaintiffs. “We are grateful for the jury’s service. The jury rejected Toshiba’s claim that it had done nothing wrong, and this is one of the few antitrust class actions ever tried to a successful verdict.”

Source

http://www.bgr.com/2012/07/03/toshiba-lcd-price-fixing-scandal/

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