To: zax who wrote (26508 ) 7/11/2013 12:22:57 PM From: puborectalis Read Replies (4) | Respond to tons of examples1961 - During the 1950s, executives from General Electric, Westinghouse, Allis-Chalmers and other leading electrical manufacturing firms met secretly to do bid rigging for major government contracts. In this price-fixing scandal, the companies took turns being the low bidder for the government contract, but at a price that was extremely profitable to the winning firm. Seven executives were found guilty.1995 - Three vitamin manufacturers and three vitamin distributors were fined for conspiring to fix vitamin pricing. The nature of the food additive industry makes it easy to create price cartels because the small number of companies in the industry facilitates price-fixing.1996 – Archer Daniels Midland was prosecuted for the illegal price-fixing of lysine, a nutritional additive used in livestock feed, and citric acid. The company produced 54 percent of the nation's lysine used in the US and 95 percent globally. The higher prices of animal feed resulted in lost income for hog and poultry farmers, as well as feed companies.2000 - A price-fixing arrangement between major auction houses, Christie's and Sotheby's, was brought to light. Executives at both houses had agreed to fix commission fees charged to sellers and to work together on other business practices that illegally hurt competition and cost customers tens of millions of dollars. Christie's gained immunity from prosecution in the US, but Sotheby's senior managers were fired after the price-fixing case progressed. Jail sentences and fines were issued in the final verdict.2002 - A former executive of Elpida Memory, a large Japanese manufacturer of DRAM chips, pleaded guilty for his participation in a global conspiracy to fix prices. Elpida and four other DRAM manufacturers participated in the price-fixing scandal of DRAM sold to certain computer and server manufacturers. The customers affected by the price-fixing conspiracy were Dell, Compaq, HP, Apple Computer, IBM, and Gateway—plus one bid rigging lot sold to Sun Microsystems in March 2002 (per eNotes).2007 - The Bay Citizen reported that from 1994 to 2007, CFO of Micron Technologies, a maker of computer memory chips, violated federal antitrust laws by driving up the price of memory. Other companies involved included—Samsung, Infineon, Hynix Semiconductor and Elpida Memory. Civil and criminal penalties were given as well as jail time.
