NEW YORK, NY (August 6, 2010) - Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today filed an antitrust action against several major technology companies for illegally fixing prices for liquid crystal display (“LCD”) screens used in computers, televisions, and cell phones.
The lawsuit seeks to recover damages suffered from 1996 to 2006 by New York State and other public purchasers - local governments, schools, hospitals, and colleges, among others - that purchased computers and other goods containing the price-fixed screens. The suit seeks damages, restitution, and civil penalties.
The lawsuit, filed in State Supreme Court in New York County, alleges that companies in Japan, Korea, and Taiwan, and their U.S. counterparts, engineered a cartel that dominated the $70 billion market for LCD screens for approximately a decade. The cartel ensured that LCD prices were set not by competition, but by detailed and explicit secret agreements among the competitors. New York State purchasers paid artificially higher prices for products containing LCD panels as a result of the illegal conspiracy.
“Our investigation shows that an illegal cartel eliminated competition in the marketplace for LCD screens, made its own secret decisions to boost prices, and then took steps to make those high prices stick,” said Attorney General Cuomo. “As a result, hard-pressed New York cities, towns, schools, and hospitals spent hundreds of millions of dollars on LCD screens affected by the illegal conspiracy. My office is bringing this case to get those illegal overcharges back.”
Specifically, the lawsuit cites evidence that:
The defendants named in the action are:
This case is being handled by Assistant Attorneys General John Ioannou and Geralyn J. Trujillo and Acting Chief of the Antitrust Bureau Richard L. Schwartz, under the supervision of Deputy Attorney General for Economic Justice Michael Berlin and Executive Deputy Attorney General for Economic Justice Maria Vullo