14 DAY TRIAL // It seems that the European Commission will still have to go through a few court meeting in its investigations into the LCD price fixing cartel now that one of its members intends to appeal at the Luxembourg general court.
As it seems to be customary around the holidays, lawsuits are either sprouting up anew or continuing more intensely than over the course of the whole year.
Most recently, the European Commission decided to issue a fine of about 649 million Euro to six liquid crystal display panel makers.
For those in need of a reminder, the lawsuit established that six TFT-LCD makers participated in a price-fixing cartel meant to illegally boost profits.
The companies found to have participated in the so-called 'crystal meetings' between 2001 and 2006 were AU Optronics, Samsung, LG, Chimei InnoLux, Chunghwa Picture Tubes and HannStar Display.
Samsung reported the cartel, and this let it get off with absolutely no fines thanks to the US legislation.
This means that the remaining five companies have to jointly pay the aforementioned sum of money.
Unfortunately, at least for those hoping things would finally get over and done with, AU Optronics is predictably not thrilled with the news.
As such, according to a recent report published by Digitimes, the LCD maker intends to appeal against the decision at the Luxembourg general court.
Granted, AUO has been cooperating with the European Commission for the past four years, so it is still not completely clear whether the appeal will happen or not.
If it decides to go through with it, it will request that an independent judiciary perform an objective arbitration.
Considering that it will take two years for the court to reach a decision on this, again, if the appeal is made, it may or may not be seen as playing for time. Regardless, the outfit doesn't expect the EC's decision to affect its operation overmuch.