14 DAY TRIAL // LG has always done its best to stay on top of the display industry, but while that means it's always among the first to launch something new, and has some of the best sales figures, it also tends to suffer more visibly than others when accounting irregularities happen, like now.
Well, more visibly on paper. The financial papers that its board of directors and shareholders have to be faced with every quarter.
Basically, if, say, a supplier of components were to start fixing prices, the financial repercussions for a company of LG's size and caliber would be fairly blatant after a while.
As it happens, LG is certain that price-fixing is precisely what some Taiwan-based panel makers have been up to for a while.
LG's spokesperson Juah Kim reportedly said that major panel makers like Optronics (AUO), Innolux, Chunghwa Picture Tubes (CPT) and Hannstar Display have been getting more money from LG than they should.
So we suppose that “accounting irregularities” isn't a strong enough term to describe LG's feelings on the matter.
Anyway, LG is seeking monetary reparations, feeling that the companies mentioned above owe it $848,000 / €621,000 for fixing prices of LCD panels used in TVs, monitors and other applications.
None of the defendants have commented yet, but that's not such a big shock, since this is a very, very early report on the matter.
In fact, it is so early that some of the companies might not even have known that LG was making such moves against them until the report came out. After all, none of them have actually received the papers relevant to the case so far.
On the bright side, this doesn't look like one of those lawsuits likely to last for years upon years. We've already got more than enough of those going on, most notably the Samsung-Apple patent war.