Dell Sues Toshiba, Hitachi, Others for LCD Cartel
By - Source: Tom's Hardware US
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28 comments
Dell is suing five LCD panel manufacturers for alleged price fixing.
On Friday of last week, Dell filed a lawsuit at a U.S. district court in San Francisco against a group of five LCD makers in Asia. A spokesman at Dell's Japan unit yesterday told Reuters that the company had filed suit against Sharp, Hitachi, Toshiba, Seiko Epson and HannStar for allegedly fixing the price of LCD panels
Details about the suit are pretty scant. Reuters reports that both Sharp and Hitachi said that they were aware of the suit but declined to comment on the matter. Dell has not said what it is seeking in terms of damages.
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If they do develop bezel-free screens, that'd make it a lot more feasible for multi-screen displays. But where would the buttons go?
I think it'll be Vizio.
It feels like the LaHood, GM, and Toyota conspiracy again.
The side of the monitor maybe.
Price fixing doesn't mean one manufacturer is setting the price for their own panels however high they want. That's perfectly legal. Price fixing means that several manufacturers got together and agreed to not drop prices below a certain level, in essence creating a monopolistic situation. If the manufacturers had not agreed on this, then competition would have driven prices down, but because of the price fixing, the prices remain well above where their equilibrium would have been without the illegal collaboration.
They should have been able to find corporate allies (i.e. Apple's massive legal team) to help in a lawsuit that would impact all monitor sales.
Dell actually has a much superior linup of monitors compared to Samsung. Correct me if I am wrong, but Samsung does not put out any monitors with the best type of pannel technology, IPS. Most of Samsung monitor pannels are VA or the more common and very crappy, TN. Even though IPS monitors are not very common, and are not usually sold based on the merrits of the pannel technology, Dell does have a few IPS pannel monitors.
http://www.pchardwarehelp.com/guides/s-ips-lcd-list.php
I have been researching this alot recently because I am trying to find a relitively cheap IPS monitor at 24 inches, so I have been researching lcd monitors significantly for a few months now.
cartels are always bad for us the consumer. competition causes prices to go down for consumers, while cartels do not.
The same Dell that in every single sector from 15" upwards has a price
that is more than almost every one else apart from Apple?
Maybe they aren't so angry about the price fixing so much that the price they fixed it to was still consistently less than Dell.
Gotcha, I was under the impression that several companies had got together to DROP prices and eventually gain a major profit due to Dell not being able to match whatever the competition price was at.
Yeah, thats why price fixing charges seem absurd. If price fixing is about artificially keeping prices at high levels then why is every accused cheaper than Dell? Whoops!
If this is true though I don't see how more companies wouldn't be complaining and have prices as high as Dell. Maybe it has something to do with them them being an american company but then you would think companies like HP and Apple would watn to sue as well
since when? they have samsung internals.
also I can see why they'd sue.. they aren't suing samsung, but when you have so many other companies price fixing then it changes the market. I'm glad I don't own any of the mentioned brands. I still remember when a 15" crappy HP LCD panel cost a lot of money. and for what, this small of a piece of equipment? and u know that anything that says HP or compaq on it is going to fail which it did after 2 or 3 years for my neighbor..
I understand your point but if you actually think about it, why would Dell be angry at companies that sell their products at a higher price? I could understand if the same product was sold for cheaper and in-turn making Dell have to lower thier prices to match the competition but higher prices means more people will opt for the cheaper solution since the harware is basically the same regardless of the company (manufaturer).
Doesn't Chi-Mei make the panels for Dell's monitors? Dell itself is not a panel manufacturer. They buy panels (possibly even complete monitors) from another company, then sell them as Dell-branded monitors. That is, unless things have changed recently and I missed them buying out an actual panel-maker...
The only way I can see Dell complaining is if these other companies were inflating the price of their products, but we all know that Dell's monitors tend to be on the pricier-side of things. So, this just doesn't make sense to me... Are they mad cause all these other companies are selling their units cheaper? What a shame! They're selling at a lower price AND selling more units!?
Damn capitalism!!! LOL