Philips and LG among TV companies caught up in price-fixing scandal

Philips and LG Philips and LG are two of the TV makers who have been handed a record European Union fine of €1.47bn ($1.92bn) by the European Commission for price-fixing.  The regulator\'s penalty was also imposed on Panasonic, Samsung, Toshiba, and Technicolor. The companies are guilty of fixing prices of TV and computer monitor cathode-ray tubes for almost a decade. Taiwanese firm Chunghwa Picture Tubes avoided a hefty fine after exposing such industry practices.
An EU statement read: \"The European Commission has fined seven international groups of companies a total of €1,470,515,000 for participating in either one or both of two distinct cartels in the sector of cathode ray tubes.\" The cartels operated worldwide between 1996 and 2006. \"For almost 10 years, the cartellists carried out the most harmful anti-competitive practices, including price fixing, market sharing, customer allocation, capacity and output coordination and exchanges of commercial sensitive information,\" the commission added.
Dutch company Philips was fined €313.4m, followed by LG Electronics who will pay €295.6m.
Cathode ray tubes (CRTs) for 50% to 70% of their price of TV and computer monitors. \"The cartellists were trying to address the decline of the CRT market in a collusive way, to the detriment of consumers,\" the commission concluded.