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LCD makers under price-fixing investigation
In light of our recent post about another Samsung exec falling on his sword in the DRAM price-fixing scandal and the current DoJ scrutiny of the graphics card industry, commetor, otakucode, reminds us about the developing LCD antitrust story. (Maybe this will take our minds off the SRAM incident.)LCD screens are becoming commodities, being produced for phones, TVs, computers, game systems, MP3 players, and many more devices. With the screens being so common, their cost -- and profit -- naturally falls, so what's a little collusion among friends?LG.Philips, Samsung, Sharp, and others have been contacted by authorities in the U.S., Europe, Japan, and/or Korea about working together to keep LCD prices high; so far, the investigation relates to devices from 2003 and 2004.We always thought LCDs were expensive, especially a few years ago. We're interested in finding out if we're just miserly or if the prices have been artificially high. Probably both.Read:LCD Price-Fixing Investigation Goes GlobalUPDATE: Regulatory Probe of LCD Market Widens[Thanks, otakucode!]
The fix is in: Another Samsung exec falls in DRAM conspiracy
The fifth Samsung executive has agreed to a 10-month prison sentence, pleading guilty to conspiring with other companies to fix DRAM prices. Since 2003, the ongoing U.S. Department of Justice investigation has charged four vendors in the scandal. While Samsung already pleaded guilty and was fined $300 million a year ago, this latest plea relates to OEM price-fixing over 2001 and 2002; if you bought a computer from Dell, HP, Gateway, or Apple, those companies likely passed the extra costs on to you.Once a product becomes a commodity -- like RAM -- the pressure for collusion seems to rise because price is the main product difference; all vendors lose in a price war. We don't think that video cards and GPUs are interchangeable like RAM, but is the graphic industry using similar tricks?See also:Uh-oh! Sony part of DoJ's inquiry into SRAM salesFeds tracking AMD/ATI, Nvidia in antitrust probe
Uh-oh! Sony part of DoJ's inquiry into SRAM sales
It's not just the bloggers, the journalists, the Wall Street suits, and the battery burn victims that are down on Sony these days ... Alberto Gonzalez and the legal eagles down at the Department of Justice have decided to pile on. What are they mad about? Hint: it's not exploding batteries or a hefty price tag.Nope, apparently Sony is part of an industry-wide inquiry into sales of SRAM. According to a Sony spokesman, even though they don't manufacture the SRAM themselves, they sold $27.7 million worth of it in 2005. Sony responded to the inquiry simply, stating, "Sony intends to cooperate fully with the DoJ in what appears to be an industry-wide inquiry." How else could this be ugly? Well, according to Howstuffworks.com, "The [PS3's] SPEs each come loaded with 256 KB SRAM. This high-speed memory helps each SPE crunch numbers quickly."It's unclear what the inquiry is related to, but the AP reports that, "a separate Justice Department investigation into price-fixing among DRAM companies has so far resulted in more than a dozen charges against individuals and more than $731 million in fines against" various RAM manufacturers. According to the website for a pending class action lawsuit, "several marketers and sellers of SRAM formed a cartel and conspired to reverse the steady decline of SRAM prices that occurred from 1994-97. The conspiracy was successful. Beginning in 1998, SRAM prices increased dramatically and continued to increase through 2001. Even when SRAM prices dipped in 2002, the cartel's conspiracy was still able to keep SRAM prices at an artificially high level. By engaging in its illegal, anti-competitive activity, the cartel caused purchasers of SRAM to pay supra-competitive prices."Uh-oh.[Thanks to everyone that sent this in!]
US DOJ investigates Mitsubishi's prior SRAM biz
It's been several years since Mitsubishi bailed out of the crowded SRAM business, but apparently the US Department of Justice still has a bone to pick with the mega corporation. After handing off its SRAM operations to Renesas -- "a joint venture founded by Mitsubishi and Hitachi" in 2003 -- the firm had seemingly bypassed the barrage of DOJ inquisitions which pinned Samsung with a $300 million fine and led the Korean FTC to examine the uber-low NAND memory prices that only Apple seemed to be receiving. Now the anti-trust agency has tagged its third victim regarding the US SRAM market, but has yet to explain what issue(s) piqued their interest. Mitsubishi, however, is seemingly already hanging its head in shame, as it made statements insinuating that unforeseen penalties could be faced, and noted that the probe could lead to "a possible adverse affect on the company's future business performance." While we aren't exactly sure what skeletons may still be in Mitsu's closet, we've certainly been forewarned that potentially harmful discoveries could be imminent.
