LCD makers in $553 million U.S. price-fixing accord

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/12/27/us-lcd-settlement-idUSTRE7BQ0KK20111227

by llambda • 15 years ago

29 8 15 years ago

lincolnq• 15 years ago

Does anyone with knowledge of the industry care to estimate how much money these companies could make using such a scheme?

Considering how often these sorts of stories pop up (once in a while -- maybe a few times a year), and how profitable I would expect to be, I bet price-fixing happens way more often than once in a while. I wouldn't be surprised if it were the norm amongst big electronics manufacturers for most products.

I don't expect raising penalties to be effective at stopping this -- they're settling anyway. It's so profitable and so hard to catch that probably most companies would rather take the risk. If there were a better way of enforcing it, it might work.

zapman449• 15 years ago

The big problem is in proving the collusion. It's just as easy, and mostly legal to send signals to your competitors through the marketplace... release a new model with foobaz feature at a higher pricepoint, see how the competitors react... if they add foobaz feature, and stay close to your higher pricepoint, you're safe, and legal. If they undercut, you can undercut to match.

Just look at the price delta for those TV's with Netflix streaming vs those without. You can't tell me it costs $300ish to add the parts to make this work. Wireless chips cost a few cents... the screens already have a CPU in them to handle everything, so add a few cents, or maybe $1 to add a better CPU...

Do I have specific evidence? no.

endtime2• 15 years ago

Am I the only one who doesn't have a problem with this? Sure, it doesn't benefit me as the consumer, but I don't actually see why this is something the government has a right to interfere with.

mr_luc• 15 years ago

I always saw it as something that's not 'fair', but that helps the market win.

It's sort of the same as anti-monopoly laws. In a strict sense, maybe a company became a monopoly legally, by offering the best product and buying out its competition, and is acting rationally in the interest of its shareholders -- but now the market is powerless before it, so the government breaks it up, and the market has bargaining power again.

Most of the pragmatic policies that make our world work break down on a moral level when you look at them too hard. We're all just trying to do what works empirically.

endtime2• 15 years ago

>I always saw it as something that's not 'fair', but that helps the market win.

The market wins when the price-fixing stops being worth the opportunity cost of increased sales, or when a competitor (new or old) decides not to play ball. Not when the government steps in to force things in a certain direction.

>Most of the pragmatic policies that make our world work break down on a moral level when you look at them too hard. We're all just trying to do what works empirically.

The uneasiness I feel at the implication that things can be looked at "too hard" aside, how can one actually justify the claim that this works empirically ("works" meaning, presumably, in this case, that a better outcome is achieved)?

orijing• 15 years ago

Without specific evidence like phone records, how could they prove illegal collusion?

icefox• 15 years ago

Anyone know of where there is some actual data? What has the price per sq inch of LCD been for the last decade or something? (on the same note it would be interesting to extrapolate it to see when lcd's will suddenly be _really_ cheap like arm computers are now)

nonsequ• 15 years ago

The really funny thing is that the LCD panel business is generally horrible. All profits must be reinvested in expensive new production lines, there's little differentiation among makers, and everybody's been gunning for market share in a growing market. Net net, the panel makers have made next to nothing, even with price-fixing.

The current situation is even more dire. None of the LCD panel makers have turned a profit for almost two years now as rapid LCD TV demand growth has slowed down. I'm not saying their behavior should be condoned, but this is kicking them while they're down.

LCD makers in $553 million U.S. price-fixing accord

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