Hitachi- LG JV pleads guilty to price fixing

Hitachi-LG Data Storage Inc's plea was accepted by District Judge Richard Seeborg at a hearing in San Fransisco. The company was sentenced to a 21.1 US million fine. The company admitted to conspiring to eliminate competition or fix prices for drives sold to Dell, Microsoft and Hewlett Packard dating back to 2004. The venture was also charged with participating in a scheme to defraud HP during one procurement event in 2009. Several companies including Sony, Hitachi and Toshiba revealed that they received subpoenas in 2009 from the Justice Department related to the investigation of sales of disk drives, such as CD, DVD and Blu-ray players. Hitachi-LG Data Storage Inc agreed to assist with the ongoing investigation. ----- Source: Reuters