News - Asian LCD makers fined US$56m by China for price fixing

[HEXUS]

Guilty parties include Samsung and LG Display.

Read more.

[rpsgc]

inb4 EU evil-socialist money grab... oh wait, it's China, it's cool then.

[brasco]

It's quite frustrating that these fines only serve as a deterrent to put them off doing it again, and we end up with no compensation for the price fixing, in fact we'll end up paying for it again.
At least it's not important drugs or essentials I suppose...

[zap117]

I'm no economics major, but if they don't like the price then why don't they get LCD's elsewhere? Then that would make price fixing pointless as they would have to change the price anyway.

[Ross1]

I'm no economics major, but if they don't like the price then why don't they get LCD's elsewhere? Then that would make price fixing pointless as they would have to change the price anyway.

generally price fixing would only work when you cant get your items elsewhere. however, this is true in a fair amount of hi tech hardware sectors where barriers to entry are high and no-one else can get in to offer more competitive prices.

[rover214]

Where does the money for the fines go ?

To the consumers? who, at the end of the day are paying for the price fixed items, I think not

[Valinor]

I'm no economics major, but if they don't like the price then why don't they get LCD's elsewhere? Then that would make price fixing pointless as they would have to change the price anyway.

You can only price fix in a market where the barriers to entry are sufficiently high that it would not be profitable for other companies to enter the market. Those same markets tend to have a few large companies, instead of a lot of small companies, and so collusion is most likely (and easiest) in markets such as this.

The general gist is that "consumers" wouldn't have any other choice but to buy from a company involved in the price fixing collusion.