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Dell has accused five Asian firms that make liquid crystal display panels of illegally colluding on prices.
The world’s third largest PC maker filed a complaint against Hitachi, Sharp, Toshiba, HannStar, and Seiko in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Friday, according to a Reuters report. Damages sought by Dell have not yet been determined.
Dell is only the latest major buyer of LCD panels to allege price-fixing by several of the industry’s largest suppliers. In October, AT&T, which purchases LCD panels for its cell phones, accused LG, Samsung, and AU Optronics of price fixing, and in December Nokia filed suit claiming the same thing.
For Sharp and Hitachi, this is also familiar territory. Early last year, Hitachi Displays, LG, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes plead guilty and paid $585 million for their roles in an LCD price-fixing scheme related to displays sold to Dell, Apple, Motorola, and others. Executives from Chunghwa, Hitachi, and LG executives were sentenced to jail and fined.
