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ARTICLE · 24 SEPTEMBER 2012

Judge Orders Record Penalties Against AU Optronics In Criminal Antitrust Case

Mayer Brown
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On September 20, 2012, a federal judge imposed a $500 million fine on AU Optronics (AU), a Taiwanese manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels, for its role in a price-fixing conspiracy.

United StatesAntitrust/Competition Law
Scott Claffee
Scott Claffee
Kelly Kramer
Kelly Kramer
John Roberti
John Roberti
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Keywords: record penalties, criminal antitrust case, price-fixing

On September 20, 2012, a federal judge imposed a $500 million fine on AU Optronics (AU), a Taiwanese manufacturer of thin-film transistor liquid crystal display (TFT-LCD) panels, for its role in a price-fixing conspiracy. The amount of the fine equals that of the largest criminal antitrust fine in history and is roughly equal to the entire amount of fines collected by the Antitrust Division of the US Department of Justice (DOJ) in FY 2011. Two senior executives of AU, former AU president Hsuan Bin Chen and former vice president Hui Hsiung, were sentenced to three years in prison for their role in the conspiracy, the second-longest terms ever ordered in an antitrust case. The Antitrust Division had sought a fine of $1 billion and ten-year prison terms for each executive, all of which would have set records.

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