Cartel Activities
Korean companies have been subject to fines of 1.6605 trillion won (US$1.4994 billion) since 2010 for business collusion.
The U.S. authorities imposed a fine of US$32 million on Samsung SDI in March 2011 for fixing the prices of CDT monitors. In May 2010, the European Commission levied 146 million euros (US$182 million) and 51 million euros (US$64 million) on Samsung Electronics and Hynix for DRAM price fixing, respectively. Seven months later, LG Display had to pay 215 million euros (US$269 million) for unfair business practices.
More recently, the European Commission took 492 million euros (US$616 million) from LG Electronics and 151 million euros (US$189 million) from Samsung SDI in December 2012 for their oligopoly in the CRT market. In September this year, it imposed a fine of 35.1 million euros (US$43.9 million) on Samsung Electronics for fixing the price of semiconductor chips used in smartphones and bank cards.
During the five-year period, the fines reached 6.2 billion won (US$5.6 million) in Canada, 6.3 billion won (US$5.7 million) in Australia, and 3.2 billion won (US$2.9 million) in New Zealand for Korean Air. Also, it amounted to 37.3 billion won (US$33.7 million) in China for Samsung Display and LG Display.