EU dings Sony, Panasonic over rechargeable battery cartel The great battery scam has reached a milestone in Europe. The European Commission this week imposed a settlement fine of €166m on a trio of Japanese manufacturers for operating the price-fixing cartel. Sony, Panasonic and Sanyo used an increase in the price of cobalt as a pretext to collude to fix prices, Competition …
This is the third time that I remember that they have got away with monopolistic practices simply by squealing. If memory serves the previous occasions were in the European TV market. It is one thing to reduce their punishment in return for cooperation and quite another to allow them to get away scot free every time.
If I was making that decision, it would be quite simple.
Situation 1: Samsung does not co-operate - (attempt to) fine them all, receive €X.
Situation 2: Samsung co-operates and provides useful evidence - fine everyone else, receive €Y.
If Y>X, then encourage co-operation.
Remember, with a lack of evidence X may well be zero.
While they have behaved badly and in an ideal world should be punished, the motivation here is the making the market function.
As such, having a massive electrogadget company who is willing to both join cartels, then grass them all up performs two societally useful tasks: it prevents cartels from forming ( can't form without samsung, can't form with them without getting your collar felt ) and also any cartels that do manage to form don't last long.
I'd say that we should encourage Samsung to join as many cartels as it likes.
you have to remember, there is no giant Samsung mother brain.. its lots of different companies and departments doing different things. The people who arranged the cartel are probably not the ones that discovered it and then did the (right thing)tm in alerting the relevant legal structures as to what had been going on.
If its the same guy, in a corner office somewhere, setting up and then squaling on cartels then I agree its a bit weird (and any other companies should probably take note to not listen to samsungs suggestions of price fixing too often (especially if its the same guy over and over).
But most likely its a case of the left hand setting up cartels and the right hand firing the left hand and then self reporting that the left hand has been up to no good again. there is no point in punishing the right hand for speaking up - that just makes sure that the left hand gets away with stuff. And you can be pretty sure that at least some heads rolled in Samsung because of this (although probably not as many as should have rolled).
Canada is known for White Collar crime but we do have anti-combine laws. Getting them enforced is next to impossible and such cases as the chocolate price-fixing occur only because businesses themselves use government agencies and our laws to advance their interests.
Canada has so many obvious price fixing practices in so many industries any agency serious about prosecuting such White Collar crime would be assured of decades of work. It isn't even seen as illegal and is described as "Best Practice", or just business, or free market, as if there was anything like a free market. If there was the banks would have been broke long ago.
Speaking of price fixing Canadian banks are masters of the craft. But of course that is a good thing since most Canadian governments are beholden to them and hold stock.
I wonder what our economy would look like if business could not collude or cooperate to maximise profits at the expense of the people and the country?
Ridiculous prices in Europe.
But since we see major companies being fined big money YET AGAIN for competition law breaches,
it is clear that in the longer term "game" the risk is worth taking (otherwise we wouldn't continue to see investigations and fines). And by implication the majority of breaches go undetected and unpunished.
The thing is that monetary fines don't scare big companies. That's just an occupational hazard and rarely affects bonuses. What does scare big companies is "punishments in kind", like a temporary sales ban, because that affects the top and bottom line and does harm bonuses, and there's the shame of having to turn down business. Another measure the authorities might consider is rather than fines as a percentage of turnover, fines as a percentage of equity, paid in new equity. That would permanently dilute the existing shareholder's returns and avoid fines paid by customers.
Are those Bosch plugs on Ebay in the US genuine?
Remember that a very high percentage of 'new' goods sold on FleaBay are fake.
Remember the scam over SD/CF cards? They appeared to be say 2GB but were actually only 128Mb and were doctored to simply overwrite old picture with new ones instead of saying 'I am full'.
Just a word of caution.
For cheap plugs, first thing to do is to check that "Bosch" is spelled correctly. ;-)
Good equivalents are rarely less than half the price of an original part. If somebody sells them very cheaply, caution is in order - they may be counterfeit, stolen, refurbished, or just a different type.
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