With Taiwan-based AU Optronics having already been convicted, this March, of illegally conniving with other companies - like LG Display and Toshiba - to build an international LCD price-fixing "cartel" to boost the cost of LCD screens, the US Department of Justice (DoJ) is urging the courts to impose a $1billion fine on AU Optronics.

In fact, in addition to the fine, the DoJ - in its Tuesday request to the courts - has also demanded a 10-year prison sentence for ex-AU Optronics executives Hsuan Bin Chen and Hui Hsiung, for their involvement in the LCD price-fixing scheme.

Describing the LCD price-fixing scheme as the most significant price-fixing scheme ever in the US, the DoJ said that the international LCD price-fixing "cartel" primarily set and controlled the costs of the LCD panels used in the screens of computers and televisions.

According to a sentencing document which the DoJ filed in U. S. District Court for the Northern District of California on Tuesday, over $2.3 worth of LCD panels had been sold by AU Optronics in the US during its long-standing involvement in the price-fixing conspiracy.

Noting that AU Optronics connived with other LCD makers to fix prices for five years, beginning from September 2001, the DOJ said that though the conspiracy chiefly targeted the US and its hi-tech companies like Apple, HP, and Dell, it eventually "affected every family, school, business, charity, and government agency that paid more to purchase notebook computers, computer monitors, and LCD televisions during the conspiracy."