Seven manufacturers share $1.92 billion fine for 10 years of CRT price fixing | Hacker News Reader

Seven manufacturers share $1.92 billion fine for 10 years of CRT price fixing

geek.com

100 pointsukdm35 comments

I find the whistle-blowing aspect interesting (Chunghwa didn't get penalized because they blew the whistle).

Did Chunghwa participate in the price fixing? Did they get the benefits, and then throw their competitors under the bus? It would be an interesting way to disadvantage your competition if so.

Prisoner's Dilemma anyone?

The Prisoner's Dilemma is different, since (here) there is no punishment if there is no betrayal, and betrayal is basically atomic.

No, it's the same. If no one talks, nothing bad happens. If one person talks they get to keep all the money and everyone else eats a big fine.

Look at the matrix in [1]. The matrix here is

    +-----------+
    | A,A | C,B |
    +-----------+
    | B,C | n/a |
    +-----------+

With (A=B) > C

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner%27s_dilemma#Generalize...

If memory serves, it is common that the whistle-blower gets a lower penalty/gets of entirely in antitrust cases, simply because if no one blows the whistle it is unlikely that there would be an investigation in the first place.

It should be a deterent to enter the illegal trust knowing that every member has an incentive to blow the whistle. That needs massive amounts of faith in competitors.

When I worked at Sony the only annual mandatory traing sessions were competition law training for everyone near marketing and the potential penalties were drummed in (upto 10% of global group turnover).

Rewording of http://gigaom.com/europe/samsung-lg-and-others-hit-with-reco... submitted by an undisclosed geek.com employee.

It seems as if the fines here are so minuscule to the profits that they probably got from the price fixing. I bet they could just put that number on the books similar to loss prevention and call it a day...

So do these price fixing fines get distributed among the consumers who paid this price?

No. It's too bad the link didn't go straight to the press release, because it answers that question and links to more information about seeking damages.

From http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-1317_en.htm :

"Any person or firm affected by anti-competitive behaviour as described in this case may bring the matter before the courts of the Member States and seek damages. The case law of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and the Antitrust Regulation (Council Regulation 1/2003) both confirm that in cases before national courts, a Commission decision is binding proof that the behaviour took place and was illegal. Even though the Commission has fined the companies concerned, damages may be awarded without these being reduced on account of the Commission fine."

In other words, people can sue for damages and use this ruling as proof. That europa.eu pages has a little more information and some links.

I do wonder what happens these fines.

The US govmt are pursuing lots of banks (suspiciously lots of foreign ones) and applying massive fines with little hope of recourse or application of due process. And It is not clear if this money goes anywhere at all.

i have a game on hn, where i try to guess how many posts before someone criticises "the government". you beat even my cynical best guess here.

Is it not a valid question considering the government is collecting a fine due to consumers over paying?

Who else is going to do it?

Are you trying to say the citizens of the EU shouldn't be told how their government is going to spend an extra $2 billion?

Because that's what he's asking about.

I agree it's an important question, but I don't know the answer.

It is not hard to Google, and the answer is not surprising. http://ec.europa.eu/competition/cartels/overview/faqs_en.htm...:

"What happens to the proceeds from fines?

The amount of the fines is paid into the Community budget. The fines therefore help to finance the European Union and reduce the tax burden on individuals."

1. I didn't criticize, I questioned

2. Pretty valid question!

applying massive fines with little hope of recourse or application of due process

Usually when companies settle it's because the evidence against them is overwhelming, and would hurt their brand far more than the cost of the fine. If you really want to know how these things work, you can generally study the text of settlements at the websites of the relevant government agencies, because they're public documents.

IF they go into the general treasury of the relevant states, then you could say that in the long term it goes "evenly" to the taxpayers of those states.

This of course assumes some relationship between the amount of money a country has and how much it decides to tax, which I think is far from given. But in some sense $ in from fines = $ of taxes they don't "need" in the future.

> IF they go into the general treasury of the relevant states, then you could say that in the long term it goes "evenly" to the taxpayers of those states.

Obviously, you could say this, and I could certainly say I think it's a ridiculous claim.

I don't think it's too ridiculous. Sure, it's by no means the only determining factor of tax rates, but I find it hard to believe that tax rates are entirely independent of a government's bottom line. Thus, if this just goes straight to their bottom line, it will have some (small) effect on the future tax rates.

If you're just trolling due to my (potentially) incorrect use of the word "could" then carry on.

Is there any mathematical method for identifying price fixing?

Like the benford law for identifying bad accounting?

I guess you would look for correlation in price changes. Problem with that is that external factors (oil prices, failed harvests, earthquakes in Japan) can cause correlated price changes, too. Correlation of price changes between some major competitors while some other players do not follow suit might be an indicator, but those other competitors might just be in a slightly different situation (other manufacturing method or other company structure (e.g. if one of them owns a mine or has a long-term contract, price changes would affect them differently))

In the end, it is really hard to detect cartels. That, I think, is the reason the EU has the rule "the one who tells us walks free". Without it, companies taking part in cartels would have too little to fear.

The original source explains why the meetings were called “green meetings” and quotes from uncovered documents about the price-fixing:

http://gigaom.com/europe/samsung-lg-and-others-hit-with-reco...

All the management involved has already got their fat bonuses to that point.

What items are being price fixed these days?

We'll find out in ten years.

Movies, e-books, console video games, phone and internet services.

LCDs

Data (wired and mobile) seems like the obvious one in the US at least.

Cell plans.

SMS, oh God, SMS.

scientific calculators

Food

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