Since 1997, U.S. Courts have divided price fixing into two categories: vertical and horizontal. Vertical price fixing includes a manufacturer's attempt to control the price of its product at the retail level. Courts have ruled that this may be legal in State Oil Co. v. Khan , in which the US Supreme Court held that vertical price fixing is no longer considered a per se violation of the Sherman Act, but horizontal price fixing is still considered a breach of the Sherman Act.
Also in 2008, the defendants of United States v. LG Display Company, United States v. Chunghwa Picture Tubes, and United States v. Sharp Corporation (heard in the Northern District of California) agreed to pay a total sum of $585 million to settle their prosecutions for conspiring to fix prices of liquid crystal display panels. This was the second largest amount awarded under the Sherman Act in history. [8]
In October 2005, the Korean company Samsung pleaded guilty to conspiring, along with other companies, including Infineon and Hynix Semiconductor, to fixing the price of dynamic random access memory (DRAM) chips. Samsung was the third company to be charged in connection with the international cartel and was fined $300 million, the second largest antitrust penalty in U.S. history.
In 2008 in the United States, the LG Display Company, Chunghwa Picture Tubes and Sharp Corporation agreed to plead guilty and pay $585 million in criminal fines for conspiring to fix prices of liquid crystal display panels. [20][21]
In late 2005 and early 2006, Lufthansa and Virgin Atlantic came forward about their involvement in large price-fixing schemes for cargo and passenger surcharges in which 21 airlines were involved since 2000 (amongst which were British Airways, Korean Air, and Air France-KLM). The U.S. Department of Justice fined the airlines a total of $1.7 billion, charged 19 executives with wrongdoing and four executives received prison terms
Clearly American legal precedent supports Fair, competitive markets, not a mythical "Free Markets".
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