Alleged Price Fixing Gets Toshiba and 13 Others Sued

There have been many lawsuits involving entities from the IT industry, and there still are, so it isn't that surprising to hear of a new one sprouting up, although, true enough, the recent charges alleging price fixing are aimed at quite the number of companies.

One thing that the IT industry, much like any other facet of the economy, never really sees any shortage of is legal battles.

Most often a company or another will sue rivals over what they perceive as infringed patents or breach of agreements (HP vs. Oracle is a recent example).

Other times, one or more sides will be accused by either a company or actual legal organs over what they consider unlawful activities of other kinds.

It is the latter category that the recent action started by retailer P.C. Richard & Son Inc. started against 14 companies.

Said companies, among others, include Toshiba and Sharp. Basically, P.C. Richard and Son claim that the targeted corporations conspired to fixing the prices of liquid crystal displays for quite a while, beginning as far back as 1996.

A Toshiba spokesman said that the company is now looking into the charges, while Sharp has yet to comment in any way.

Meanwhile, seven of the fourteen defendants have actually admitted to participating in the anticompetitive activities. This has earned them fines in the million of dollars.

The exact charge reads that the LCD makers “met in person or communicated by other means to agree on LCD product prices and the amount of LCD products each would produce.”

The lawsuit was filed with the federal court in Brooklyn, New York, and was filed by not just P.C. Richard (based in Farmingdale, New York), but also ABC Appliance Inc. (Pontiac, Michigan).

What remains is to see how the other remaining companies, who have yet to admit to anything, react to all of this.